Page 1243 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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MADAM SPEAKER: Members having the discussion across the chamber, Ms Le Couteur has the floor. Can you continue, Ms Le Couteur?
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wanted to comment that it is very hard, when you are not reading a speech and you are actually trying to talk, when you have people yelling at you.
Members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Ms Le Couteur, can you resume your seat? Mrs Jones, I asked for people to stop. Your interjection is not useful. Mr Rattenbury, no more interjections from the back. Mr Coe, can you just contain yourself? I call Ms Le Couteur.
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was trying to say that this is a real issue that we need, as an Assembly, to continue to pursue, regardless of the motives of anyone in this particular debate. Certainly, from my point of view, I am not trying to shut down debate; I am just trying to be respectful of committee processes. This is the sort of thing that admin and procedure could quite reasonably look at. As I said, we could not quite work out how we could do that and adjourn the debate within the one motion. Possibly we were not ambitious enough. This is something that does need better consideration than we are able to give it here.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (10.30): I think we need a reality check here. The issue of development applications is extremely significant. We have a pipeline in the ACT of hundreds of millions of dollars of work that is waiting to get off the ground because of the DA process. Yet we in this place, despite having the opportunity to have a discussion on this very issue today, are refusing to do so because some of us, in another room in a few weeks time, might discuss elements of it. This is crazy. Everybody has to have a think about how we are operating today.
Why don’t we have a discussion about this right now? Why not? It is just crazy. We are not going to debate it until 6.30. It is not like we will get to a point where this is bumping off something else. We need to have these sorts of discussions in this place. That is what we are elected to do. Let us not hide behind the standing orders. Let us not hide behind advice from the Clerk. Let us have the discussions that people have sent us here to have. It is a good issue to discuss. It is absolutely front and centre for our community. Let us have it.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (10.31): Obviously, I knew this was coming, but I am still dismayed by Ms Le Couteur’s running for cover and shutting down debate on what is, as Mr Coe has said, a most important motion. Yes, we are in the middle of an inquiry into the development application process. Yes, it has taken a long time. But to suggest then that we cannot discuss in this place anything that is related in any way, shape or form to DAs, effectively for a year and a half, is absolutely ludicrous. It is absolutely ludicrous!
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