Page 763 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2005
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put something on the notice paper. Watch this space, Mr Hargreaves—there will be a lot more questions on this.
Mr Pratt: We can chew gum and walk at the same time!
MRS DUNNE: Yes, we can chew gum and walk at the same time, which is more than we see for some of those opposite.
MR SPEAKER: Relevance, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: Here we have another instance of “Stanhoping”. We have brought it out in the open, we have waved it around and said, “This is what this government did.” Mr Hargreaves said, “That is what I will do; I will “Stanhope” somebody and I will say that ACT Forests are doing a fantastic job, and therefore you cannot criticise us.”
ACT Forests do not make policy about whether or not to plant pines in the lower Cotter catchment, this government does. ACT Forests are doing their job; they are doing what the ACT government told them to do. They can bask in that light if they like, but they have to remember that the buck stops with them. They may not be held accountable today but somewhere, at some time, this arrogant government will be held accountable for its failure to take the people of the ACT into its confidence, for its failure to be completely up front about what is happening with our water supply, for its consistent failure to really address the issues of the major degradation of the lower Cotter catchment.
Mr Hargreaves, when “Stanhoping” ACT Forests, talked about a whole lot of things that have been done. It was still faint praise, though, because he said, “We are doing things that will stop some of the silt running into the river.” It is quite obvious. You do not need a PhD in natural resources to tell you that there are tonnes and tonnes of silt—possibly pesticide-laden silt—running into the Cotter catchment. You do not need a degree to be able to see that for yourself; you do not need a degree in environmental science to see that this government is failing monumentally in the first thing it is supposed to be doing according to this document, which is managing the lower Cotter catchment for water quality.
In this document there is no single line this Chief Minister can point to and say, “This line definitively says that we must plant pines in the lower Cotter catchment.” It is not there. And there is no line in there where this Chief Minister can verbal one of the foremost freshwater ecologists in this country and say that Professor Cullen signed up to planting pines in the lower Cotter catchment. As Mr Smyth rightly pointed out, this was a consensus document about broad concepts; it was not drafted by the steering committee.
For the Chief Minister to come in here and say—and on the media—that Peter Cullen signed up to every word in this document is wrong. It is possibly misleading to the people of the ACT and possibly misleading to this Assembly. In respect of any other persons on the list at the back, to say that Terry Snow signed up to planting pines in the ACT in the lower Cotter catchment is misleading, or that Rob Tonkin—
Mr Smyth: Or Rob Tonkin.
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