Page 2609 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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I believe that these are reasonable requests for the Assembly to make. That is why I think it is very disappointing that, in effect, Mr Rattenbury wants to hide behind an Auditor-General’s report which may or may not touch on these questions. Yes, it is going to touch on the subject. Of course it is, but is it going to actually bring all these answers into public? Maybe it will; maybe it will not. But we would be negligent as an Assembly if we knowingly have governance concerns but do not do anything about them.
All the questions that are raised in paragraph 3 of my motion I think should be asked by the Assembly. If we were doing our job, that is exactly what we would be doing. At its core, there was a very thorough 47-page valuation which went into great detail about this block, canvassed the fact that $1 million was needed to be spent, canvassed the fact that you cannot do residential on it, canvassed the fact that it pretty much had virtually no property rights and, accordingly, said that it was worth $950,000 to $1,050,000.
Then you have a two-page document—a two-page document in contrast to the 47-page valuation—which says
The proponents of the land wish to develop part of the land with a residential apartment complex which occupies 2,500 square metres of the footprint …
It goes on to state:
… an eight (8) level building above basement car parking and is to yield some 122 units.
That is the basis for the valuation, despite the fact that the lease does not allow residential, despite the fact that the government said there will not be residential, despite the fact that the government said it was going to be used for stormwater. This is a very serious question. It is a question that it seems Mr Rattenbury does not want to ask.
Ms Le Couteur was very interested in this when she was in the Assembly. But it seems that Mr Rattenbury is not. The government has seemingly paid $3 million more than it had to. In addition, it does not have a clear delegation or authority to actually purchase it. Mr Rattenbury is siding with the government that has actually created this problem. I think that is very telling of just how close or how tight this coalition really is.
Question put:
That Mr Barr’s amendment be agreed to.
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