Page 3350 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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Let us look at the issues Mr Savery raised. Mr Savery first raised some of these issues back in 2008. We see documents that show that in March 2008 he was corresponding, saying, “I want to use this as evidence”—use this as evidence with the head of the Chief Minister’s Department about the ongoing interference in the statutory planning process by officials, by this government. We have set up a statutory planning process, and then the government does not respect that process and interferes.
Let us look at what he had to say in his minute to the then planning minister, Andrew Barr. His cabinet-in-confidence minute was to convey his concerns as a statutory office bearer with respect to interference in the planning process and raise the prospect that the matter of the Giralang development application for a supermarket be determined by government. He believed that the process had been so compromised by the government that it now needed to be called in—because of interference by the Labor government.
In his minute, he goes on—and this is an interesting part of this minute, given what this former planning minister, Andrew Barr, had to say on this subject. Andrew Barr used to come into this place and say, “We are going to take the politics out of planning.” That is what he said. That was his stated position—take the politics out of planning. We always pointed him to Wollongong and the Labor Party’s way of taking politics out of planning. It turns out that Andrew Barr was very good at saying that he wanted to take the politics out of planning, but when that very issue was raised with him by the chief planner he sold him down the river. He sold him out. Let us look at what the chief planner said:
You will understand that I find this level of interference, which in the case of DLAPS is occurring on an ever more frequent basis, although not always as obviously as in this case, has the potential to make the role of ACTPLA as a statutory authority for a range of tasks increasingly difficult and puts the Government at risk. It also means that one part of your 2010 Statement of Planning Intent is difficult to deliver, namely, keeping the politics out of planning.
The chief planner knew what a hypocrite the planning minister was. Every time he got in the Assembly and said that he wanted to take the politics out of planning he was not telling the truth. He was not telling the truth.
The chief planner is blowing the whistle. He said, “You have put the politics back into planning.” And when he asked him for help, he came to his planning minister and said, “This needs to stop.” He wrote him a letter—a draft letter for Andrew Barr to write to the Chief Minister saying, “Stop this interference. There is interference from you; there is interference from officials.” What did Andrew Barr do? Did he sign the letter? He sent the draft letter to the Chief Minister. He asked the Chief Minister to redraft a letter from him to the Chief Minister. How gutless. How absolutely spineless.
This chief planner, who we know that the current planning minister respects—he said so yesterday—and who is well respected, comes to his planning minister and says, “There is ongoing interference. I want you to do something about it. I want you to write to the Chief Minister and tell him to back off.” What does the planning minister
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