Page 2750 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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UDIA says the second factor was, of course, the planning process—land and planning. Both are under the control of this Chief Minister; both are under the control of this government; both are failing low and middle-income earners in this city in their quest to purchase a home. Until those two are properly addressed, housing affordability will remain beyond the reach of many people in this city, no matter how many schemes the Chief Minister comes up with.
It is interesting that, when the Chief Minister and others were talking about OwnPlace, what they forget—and Mr Corbell can read as many transcripts as he wants and can apportion blame wherever he seeks to apportion it but the truth will out—is that the reality is that the behaviour of the Chief Minister in this estimates process has been appalling. It has been noted by the committee and it has been recorded by the committee. I refer members to page 46 of the report and the two recommendations there, recommendation 34 and recommendation 35, and then paragraph 4.57 which follows. Recommendation 34 states:
The Committee recommends that the Chief Minister, Mr Jon Stanhope MLA, correct the record concerning his misrepresentation of the letter that the Committee wrote to the Deputy Chief Executive of Business and Projects, Mr Dawes, on 27 May 2009.
(Second speaking period taken.) Recommendation 35 states:
The Committee recommends that the Chief Minister, Mr Jon Stanhope MLA, write again to the builders involved in the OwnPlace scheme—those whom he had previously corresponded and misrepresented the Committee—and that the Chief Minister correct the record.
The committee has said that the Chief Minister has misrepresented them and he needs to correct the record. It is interesting to read the next paragraph, paragraph 4.57, on page 47:
The Committee resolved as a result of Mr Stanhope’s misrepresentations of Committee proceedings to write to the companies and industry associations to correct the record.
I am not aware of that ever happening in the history of the Assembly. In the last 20 years I have never heard of a committee writing to people to correct the mistruths that they have been told by the Chief Minister. It is an extraordinary paragraph and it is an extraordinary indictment of the behaviour of the Chief Minister.
We can get up here and we can misquote Hansard; we can twist and say that we wrote letters based on false premises and that we elicited a response that had no relation whatsoever to the truth of what occurred in the Assembly and somehow feel vindicated. But I think the shallowness of that approach brings this place into disrepute and it is why people in this community still have a dilemma with self-government in the ACT, when they have a Chief Minister who is willing to write misleading letters to leading businesses and business associations and then, when caught, refuses to correct the record.
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