Page 900 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Mr Fluffy crisis. Fluffy owners are still in their homes or in the midst of relocating. Demolition and remediation of houses and blocks is underway.
There is no question that an inquiry would be a significant call on the resources of the task force and take them away from the work they are currently focused on. I believe that would lead to a possible delay in the implementation of the task force’s response. It would lead to fewer resources being available to affected families. And bear in mind that at this stage there are still well over 100 households that have not taken a decision about what they intend finally to do. So we have the significant process of not only working with all of those households that have opted into the scheme but also dealing with all those who have not yet made a decision on what they wish to do. I think that is where the task force’s efforts should be focused at this time, and not on needing to work as a secretariat to an inquiry and having to work through all of the work that would be involved in that.
There will be a time, in my view, when the task force will get over what we might call a hump, when a lot of the work will have been done and they will be into a bit of an auto pilot mode where they will just be working through things. I do not think we are at that point yet. When that point comes, that will be a better time for the task force to be involved.
The second reason why I do not think now is quite the right time is that the government has not been able to secure the agreement or the assistance of the commonwealth government. I have asked Mr Hanson to assist the government and me in attempting to get the commonwealth government on board. He said today that he thought they were on board. That is not what the Chief Minister has been told, so clearly there is miscommunication, different messages or misunderstandings—I do not know what it is. But we need to get to a point, before we start this inquiry, where we have an agreed position between the two governments on what form the inquiry will take, in what form the participation will be from all of the parties and on the financial basis which will cover the inquiry. I think the commonwealth does have a role in that space.
I would like to see ACT federal members and senators working hard to achieve commonwealth government cooperation on the issue of a Mr Fluffy inquiry. When it comes to New South Wales, my view is that it would be better to have New South Wales involved because they are also affected, but I do not think New South Wales is critical to it. In an ideal world we would see them involved as well because there are people in Queanbeyan, just across the border, who are affected. There are people in other parts of New South Wales who are affected. I think it is better to look at the whole thing in one go, but if that is not possible, if New South Wales will not participate, so be it. I certainly think we need to have an agreement with the commonwealth on those things I have mentioned: the form of the inquiry, the terms of reference, the financing of it and the availability of documents and witnesses.
We all know that the Mr Fluffy story involves the commonwealth government to a large degree. They are central to this story and need to be central in any inquiry. To have an inquiry in isolation from the commonwealth simply would not cover the full scope of issues or responsibilities relevant to the Mr Fluffy story. That story, of course,
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video