Page 2481 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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that they would support. All the objections to the DA, as I understand it, are publicly available. My letter has been made available to the committee. I spent 40 minutes on this issue and, indeed, the committee struggled to keep me there for 40 minutes on this issue. They did just manage to get over the half an hour break to ask questions on this. That was done and dusted. You have a view on it perhaps. You have got the objections; you have got the letter; you have had it explained to you why we did it. Also you understood, and certainly I put the case, that I have responsibility for this project; so questions should be directed to me, which they were. I answered those.
There is not even any other matter the committee decides to inquire into. That is not part of the resolution of appointment. The resolution of appointment states:
… a Select Committee on Estimates 2009–2010 be appointed to examine the expenditure proposals contained in Appropriation Bill 2009–2010 and the revenue estimates proposed by the Government …
How, in that resolution of appointment, can the Minister for Planning call in or not call in a project that fits under my portfolio and fits in with the resolution of appointment? The government was very comfortable with the view that I attend to assist the committee as much as I could, and we did that. On behalf of the government, I appeared in relation to project. We answered questions about that. We struggled to fill the hour that had been allocated for that. We did so in a fulsome way to assist the committee in their deliberations.
The committee, of course, still has not formed a view about whether or not this was the right thing to do but all the information that the Minister for Planning has made his decision on, all the information that I made my decision on has been made available in one form or another for the committee.
It was entirely appropriate that I appear, although reluctantly, for a recall on this matter and it is entirely appropriate that the Minister for Planning did not. It did not fit in with the ambit of the Select Committee on Estimates and their job to scrutinise the Appropriation Bill. The scrutiny of the car park remains in my portfolio, that is where it has always sat; that is where it will remain. But the line that the estimates committee was running, and this is the line that I ran in the recall as well, was that any decision taken by government whilst an estimates committee is formed should either be volunteered as information to the estimates committee or we should return and answer further questions about decisions that might have been taken.
What would you be saying if there was no estimates committee in place and the correspondence between myself and Minister Barr continued? You have various ways to scrutinise decisions of ministers. Indeed, in the planning act itself there is a whole range of accountability measures which the Minister for Planning has just outlined for the benefit of members. That is the process that allows for proper scrutiny of ministerial decision-making. This was not about scrutiny of ministerial decision-making. This was about political point scoring and not having a view on matters of major importance, of projects of major importance to the territory. What a surprise! No view on Calvary; no view on the bush healing farm; no view on the car park.
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