Page 1416 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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earlier than November 2013, almost 18 months after your claim of mid-2012. Minister, have you misled the Assembly? If yes, will you now correct the record? If no, on what basis do you claim to have not misled the Assembly?
MS BURCH: I do thank Mr Coe for his question. I think he is referring to some comments to the inquiry. I think the staffer from LDA also made it very clear that he is not responsible for the project. If Mr Coe wants to take advice from somebody who is not responsible for the project then that is a matter for his determination. I would also point out to members here that in December we provided a submission to the inquiry and in that submission the matter of the tanks was identified. So it is not news. We stand committed that, should we have had allowance to proceed, we had an accelerated work plan that had the treatment of those tanks within it and we were on plan. But it is the Canberra Liberals that are delaying the move of Megalo.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Coe, a supplementary question.
MR COE: Minister, have you informed Megalo that they would not be relocated to Kingston before November 2013? If yes, when did you give them that advice? If no, why do they not deserve that courtesy?
MS BURCH: I think Megalo is well and truly informed that they are not moving in a hurry courtesy of the Canberra Liberals and the ACT Greens. The delay in moving Megalo rests over there, and now a member of the committee is trying to put it on us. Let us be very clear: in December, in the submission to the inquiry, we identified the tanks. We said that we would do this work. CSD, the arts portfolio, took ownership of that project in about August last year. We went straight in to an accelerated program. We put the DA and it came in with a number of comments. Our plan would have seen Megalo within that site at the end of this calendar year, but it is the Canberra Liberals and the ACT Greens that have ripped the heart out of Megalo and their program.
MRS DUNNE: Supplementary question.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, are you maintaining that your department could have built the Megalo facility in less than 18 months, which was the time that was advised to the committee and the time that it was advised to the bus depot markets that it would take to build?
MS BURCH: As I have said, CSD, through artsACT, got transfer in the middle of last year. We prepared an accelerated program that would have seen that work completed in a little over 12 months. That is all the advice. Now, courtesy of the Canberra Liberals, and Mrs Dunne and her friend Helen Moore, we have seen this project hijacked—
Mrs Dunne: Point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Stop the clocks, thank you.
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