Page 3464 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 2005
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MR SESELJA: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Minister, why are communications between ACTPLA and Environment ACT so poor that they have caused significant delays to this property in Amaroo?
MR CORBELL: Last time I looked, Amaroo high school was operating. It is an open building and it is happening. It is an extremely good school. In fact, it is a quality school—the same sort of quality school this government wants to put in place in other parts of the city that deserve it.
Mrs Dunne: I rise on a point of order. The standing orders, in standing order 118, clearly say that the minister cannot debate the question. He is required to keep roughly to the terms and subject matter of the question. It is about the relationship between ACTPLA and Environment ACT, which caused delays in the approval of Amaroo school.
MR SESELJA: It is a very specific question, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: It is an abuse, Mrs Dunne, to continually raise points of order that are really not points of order. Mr Corbell was referring to Amaroo school. Amaroo school was the subject of the question.
MR CORBELL: Of course, the issue Mr Seselja raises is the issue of referral agencies, where the Planning and Land Authority must seek the advice of other agencies within the government in the process of determining an application for development. I do not know where Mr Seselja has been for the past six months or so since the government outlined its directions for planning system reform. If he had had a bit of a look, if he had bothered to actually open the consultation documents or maybe even show up to a meeting of the planning and environment committee, which I know he does not exactly have a crystal clear record on, he would have seen that one of the requirements of planning system reform is to put in place timeframes and time limits for referral agencies to provide clear and absolute advice on their requirements. Whether it is trees, waste, roads or traffic—you name it—those timeframes are being put in place as part of the reform process.
This government understands the issues. This government understood the issue well ahead of Mr Seselja stumbling upon it and has put proposals in place. I look forward to the Liberal Party’s support for these measures when they come before the Assembly. But, when it comes to absolutely anything which is positive and proactive, we know what the response of the Liberal Party will be: it will be to oppose them, in the same way that they oppose new schools for West Belconnen—
Mr Seselja interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Seselja, I warn you!
MR CORBELL: in the same way that they oppose better public transport and in the same way that they oppose tree protection. We have exactly the same approach from the Liberal Party. They will oppose for the sake of opposing because they are driven by a faction which is negative, which is reactionary, which is conservative and which has nothing to offer the people of Canberra.
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