Page 4338 - Week 13 - Thursday, 4 December 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Through these weasel words that will affect this amendment, home owners will still have a gun to their heads. The solution they are being offered is unfair. These home owners are to be forced off their land and these home owners are not going to be able to buy back into their communities at an affordable price.
I commend my amendment to this place. I urge members to support it in its current form. Let us not have any weasel words to try and get out of jail. We are voting on fairness today. Are we going to be fair or are we going to be unfair? That is the decision we all must take.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health, Minister for Higher Education and Minister for Regional Development) (11.43): Up until the speech that has just been given by Mr Hanson, this whole issue had been dealt with in a very unusual way for this Assembly in that it had been worked on collegiately, collaboratively, with lots of discussions, with lots of cooperation and with lots of understanding. It seems that just walked out the door with the speech Mr Hanson just gave. I assure the Assembly that I have been speaking to Mr Hanson over a number of months about the need to get uplift from the land, and absolutely no concerns were raised with me during those discussions until the last week—absolutely none. In fact, in our discussions there had been an acceptance from Mr Hanson that the government must recoup costs to pay off the scheme.
In talking to his amendment, Mr Hanson said, “We’re prepared to accept those costs because they’re within the margin of error.” I do not know how a figure of $54 million is within the margin of error of a net cost of $300 million to $400 million. It seems a pretty large margin of error to me.
Mr Wall: It’s your margin.
MS GALLAGHER: The net cost. We are talking about the net cost for the scheme. And then Mr Hanson brought light rail into it and ran that line. Mr Hanson knows full well this issue is being dealt with over the next five years. There is no compare and contrast with light rail when not a cent will be spent on capital expenditure on that until 2019-20—well beyond the time the funds that are required for this go.
Yes, the government needs to show leadership. To get a lecture on leadership from Mr Hanson like that at this point in time is insulting, and I am insulted. I am the one who stood up and actually said we need to do this. People have called it brave. People have called it crazy. People have said we cannot afford it. There is genuine acceptance that nowhere else in the world has a government stood up and said, “We will buy back these homes at market rate as if there was no asbestos present to allow you out of the situation you find yourself in through no fault of your own.” No-one else has stood up. This government has done it.
Yes, we accept that the solution that is the fairest across the board does not equal people’s own individual concept of what is fair to them. But a government must govern for all. It has to be fair to the taxpayers who are paying for this. It has to be fair to everybody within the scheme, and the fairness comes from being able to get out
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video