Page 4000 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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I think, Mr Coe, there must surely have been enough time before 10 am. This is the second time I have had to make the observation in this sitting fortnight about motions being circulated that were not available to members. I expect members to be more courteous in at least having a motion available to the secretariat before they move it. Mr Coe, I have also failed to ask you to move the motion, which was an oversight on my part in the confusion at the beginning. So if I could just ask you to move that motion.
MR COE: I move:
That this Assembly censure Ms Burch for misleading the Assembly on 19 August 2010 in relation to housing for older persons.
The reason we did not circulate the motion is that I honestly expected Ms Burch to come down here and correct the record, as she has had an opportunity to do each day this week. On 19 August I asked the question of Ms Burch, which was obviously wrong. I asked a supplementary question in that very debate to clarify that:
Minister, you referred to a couple of developments that have been finished. On what date were they handed over from the developer to Housing ACT and when will the tenants move in?
Answer:
The completed homes I refer to were in Macquarie and Curtin.
Not only that—this minister was so arrogant that she then had a go at me:
I can get back to you on the exact date on the calendar with a red circle around the handover …
That red circle around the handover is not yet known because it is going to be in October some time. They are not completed at all. They are not completed homes, as she suggested. I asked that she take it on notice. Indeed, I interjected that. I even wrote to her chief of staff to clarify it. She then wrote back—it was dated 19 August but was received by my office on 24 August:
I would like to confirm that the homes in Macquarie and Curtin will be tenanted from October this year.
It is envisaged that construction will be completed by the end of September …
She had a written response to Ms Porter’s question, in which she said they were completed, and then she came back and said, “I would like to confirm that it will be October this year and they will be finished in September.” The arrogance that Ms Burch demonstrates is astounding and really quite unjustified given her performance in this place since being elected, especially over the last year since becoming a minister.
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