Page 4119 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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there saying, and he said it again in the chamber today, “Throsby should be developed.” He is not interested in the environmental assessments. He is not interested in waiting for the commonwealth referral to be put through. He wants to develop it now, concrete straight over the woodland before we have even got the environmental assessment.
Perhaps another of the ironies here is, of course, that that referral is taking place under the commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. I do not know whether you have heard of it, Mr Hanson, but that is Howard government legislation that this referral is being done under. But Mr Seselja does not want to have a bar of it. He just wants to concrete straight over the woodland before the assessment is even done under John Howard’s own legislation.
When it comes to the proposed high school in Throsby, I think it is quite clear—and Ms Hunter has been clear about this and the Greens have been clear about it—that we have no problem with the high school going ahead. We of course do need to do the assessments. The assessment for the high school has been in the pipeline for some while. My motion the other week was actually about the suburb of Throsby.
What is interesting is that my motion flushed out the fact that the government had not referred the high school site for assessment under the EPBC and in fact that has been delayed. Fortunately, because my motion came into this place it flushed out the fact that that ball had been dropped and that, I understand, is now proceeding. And my understanding, from our conversations with the Catholic Education Office, is that they are actually quite pleased that that oversight has now been flushed out and the process is moving ahead.
So I am tempted to suggest that Mr Seselja apologise for wilfully twisting and distorting my position but I am not that much of an optimist. Perhaps the best I could hope for is that in future there might be an accurate representation of both my position and that of the Greens, because I think Mr Seselja does understand the difference even if he does not choose to recognise that and instead misrepresents our position in the way that he has.
Australian peacekeeping memorial
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (6.15): I rise tonight to speak about an event that I attended—Australia’s 64th anniversary of peacekeeping involvement—a ceremony that occurred on Wednesday, 14 September at the Australian peacekeeping memorial site on Anzac Parade, Canberra. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony. This is all part of a project to have an Australian peacekeeping memorial at that site on Anzac Parade. I would like to speak about that proposal and I will quote extensively from the website of the Australian peacekeeping memorial project:
Australia has been actively involved and continually involved in peace operations for over sixty years, although our military and police contributions have increased significantly over the last decade. Our involvement has covered the complete spectrum of peace operations and personnel from a number of government agencies have participated in these peace initiatives. In 1947 four Australian ADF officers were the world’s first ever peacekeepers when deployed
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