Page 726 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 2010
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either silent or he made clear interjections which I could respond to, it might be simpler.
Mr Barr: You’d like me to be louder, would you? Will I take my interjection lessons from Mr Hanson, then? Is that it?
MR SESELJA: Either speak your mind—
Mr Hargreaves: He said, “Sex makes you deaf”!
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Seselja, resume your seat. Mr Barr, if we are ever going to get to the end of Mr Seselja’s response to your paper, we need order in the house. So will you listen in silence, please.
MR SESELJA: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not respond to the unclear interjections.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: There will not be any more.
MR SESELJA: I will respond only to the clear ones. Madam Deputy Speaker. That is the problem when your policies are developed on the back of slogans. There is a place for a call-in power and there is a place for politicians from time to time to stand up and say, “We don’t agree.” We are elected to this place to do that. Now, if we were to do that on every development application, it would become ridiculous.
Mr Smyth: As Mr Corbell used to do.
MR SESELJA: As Mr Corbell used to when he was shadow planning minister. There was not a development in town that he was not opposed to. That was politics in planning, let me tell you. But we look, for instance, at something like the power station. That was one of the examples, I think, that the government held up as politics in planning. The flip side is, if the government are going to pursue ridiculous policies and ridiculous planning outcomes in partnership with private industry or otherwise, if they want to throw a big fat power station in the backyard of Tuggeranong residents, as they wanted to do, I, for one, make no apology for standing up for those residents. If that is politics in planning, so be it. We believe there are times when elected representatives have to stand up against crazy decisions, against poor process and against a government that has no regard, in this case, for the people of Tuggeranong and their concerns. If that is politics in planning, so be it.
Label it what you want but we will not shy away from saying we disagree—not on every issue, and that has been our consistent approach; we do not oppose them when we believe they make sensible decisions and where the minister uses his political judgement or otherwise to make a decision. We believe that power should be there. We believe it should be used where it is in the public interest. Indeed, it was in the public interest for us to oppose the dirty great power station that they wanted to impose on the people of Tuggeranong. We make no apologies for that whatsoever.
Madam Deputy Speaker, Ms Le Couteur touched on the Greens’ Molonglo plan, and I would like to just say a few words on that. I have been on the record as raising
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