Page 476 - Week 02 - Thursday, 3 March 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I think that was an appropriate way for the committee to work. Despite my own position, which was different from that, I believe that it was appropriate, in considering all of the views expressed by the community group and by members of the committee, that we proceed in this direction. We had this group of figures on one side and another group of figures on the other side, so we decided to get somebody who could say, "Basically, this is flawed, that is flawed; when you marry them all up, on any fair assessment this is where you end up".
I regard the Access Economics figures as being somewhat on the conservative side, and quite rightly so. Indeed, the manner in which their report has been placed together I would regard as being in the conservative mould. I think that that is indicated quite clearly by the way that they have deliberately, as Mr Moore says, qualified a number of their comments. I have no difficulty with them deliberately, conservatively, qualifying those comments. I have no difficulty with that because I believe that, at the end of the day, further analysis, if that is ever required, would improve the value of some of those figures. It is, in my view, a conservative estimate.
I believe that it is appropriate, in view of the time that this variation has been before the public process - the process outlined and endorsed by this Assembly - to deal with it this day. I indicated that I had moved to disallow the variation because of the length of Mr Moore's dissertation on another matter on the notice paper. We had exceeded the time normally allowed for Assembly business, which would have meant that we were unable to do so. This is an appropriate mechanism to allow - - -
Mr Moore: You had to suspend the standing orders to do so.
MR LAMONT: I did move, Mr Moore, to suspend standing orders in order to allow for the disallowance to be considered and debated here, in the ultimate process. It is the ultimate process, as Mr Moore outlined. It is up to this Assembly, because we set up the committees of the Assembly to undertake this type of work, to assess what is contained in this report. If, on balance, members believe that the conclusions of the PDI Committee are flawed on all of those other matters, they should vote for the disallowance. If members of the Assembly believe that it is flawed they should vote for the disallowance. But even Mr Moore does not say that. Mr Moore says that, in addressing the issues, this report is not flawed.
Mr Moore: That report is subject to the economic analysis. That is how you wrote it.
MR LAMONT: That is not the case, Mr Moore. It says that this matter should come back before the Assembly at the same time as the disallowance motion, as I have said, in order that we may weigh up those two bodies of evidence. On any assessment of the Access Economics report, in dollar terms, and of those other matters that we have tested already, the process of the PDI Committee, this development should proceed. I took particular note of Mr Moore's favourite expression, "the greedy developers". That came up. I withdraw that; I do not think he used the word "greedy". He said that the developers would be the winners out of this. I was interested to hear the comments of the Minister as to how this North Watson development would proceed. I am quite pleased that we have had that assurance from the Minister today on the record.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .