Page 4254 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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Mr Humphries: I take a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think Mr Lamont is straying very far from the subject at hand, and I would ask him to return to the issue that is being debated.
MADAM SPEAKER: I think that is probably right, Mr Humphries; but there is a rather high level of interjection going on as well. So, quid pro quo; let us carry on and focus on the correct point, with a bit of quiet on my left.
MR LAMONT: Madam Speaker, I am glad that you did not say that there was intelligent interjection from the other side.
The simple fact is this, Mr De Domenico: On Friday, you put your hand up. On Saturday or Sunday, you were tapped on the shoulder, and you thought, "Hello! I think I have done the wrong thing". It is a bit too late to walk in here, like Pontius Pilate, point the finger and say, "Lord, it is him". You have had your opportunity. You have done it.
Mr Moore: I think you have mixed your metaphors a little.
MR LAMONT: You do not mind that, do you?
Mr Moore: He was the one who washed his hands.
MR LAMONT: But Pontius Pilate washed his hands in clean water. For Mr De Domenico, in his party room, it would be very difficult to find some clean water.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Lamont, please do not be distracted by all these biblical allusions.
MR LAMONT: The real issue is that, unlike illusions, the apparitions that come from the other side of the chamber need to be exposed. Madam Speaker, what this is all about is that the PDI Committee, a committee of this Assembly, has assessed the merits of the issues presented to it. It has determined that a particular course of action should be followed. Unlike the proposal by the current Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Carnell, about the Tuggeranong Hyperdome, the PDI Committee has said that the issues need to be addressed before any decision is made. That is the reality of what the PDI Committee's report says. That is a position supported by the Government - that you need a process; that, as a community, you need to be able to be assured that, when you put forward a proposition, the criteria against which that proposition will be assessed are consistent, development by development.
This afternoon, we heard Mr De Domenico and Mr Humphries support the current Leader of the Opposition's view that we should not go through that process; that we should unilaterally change the ground rules; that we should unilaterally say no to a particular development. That is not the view of the PDI Committee, as enunciated in this report. This report quite clearly says, "There is a process. Let us follow the process.
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