Page 2738 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.44): I think it is important that we comment on some of the areas in relation to land development and planning in the ACT. I thought it was cute that the planning minister was so sensitive on these issues that he attempted to close down the debate. Of course, we cannot reasonably talk about the LDA anywhere except under this line. As Mr Seselja rightly said, this is a cognate debate. There are many issues that were raised in the estimates process and across the budget in relation to the Land Development Agency which have been widely and appropriately covered by Mr Seselja.
It needs to be put on the record that the establishment of the Land Development Agency was vigorously opposed by this opposition. I think our opposition to its existence remains and is probably more steadfast than it was when it was first proposed back in 2002. The creation of this organisation sent mixed messages. There is a lot of crossover in the description of what it does and what the ACT Planning and Land Authority should be doing, and that causes problems.
Mr Seselja: There is more confusion now that the Chief Minister has some of it.
MRS DUNNE: As Mr Seselja rightly says, there is even more confusion because of some of the land development responsibilities now going to the Chief Minister. Nowhere have we seen that confusion more than in the EpiCentre fiasco. I dare not call it “Epigate”, but one day we may call it “Epigate”. We know just how sensitive the government have become on this when they start putting together dorothy dixers to try and justify their position. We saw it today. After two sitting weeks of this minister taking questions on notice, putting forward highly equivocal answers and contradicting himself, he attempted to put the record straight by way of a dorothy dixer today. It was a very poor effort indeed. It was a very poor defence of a pretty indefensible position.
Mr Seselja has done a splendid job of highlighting the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the process and doing a lot to chivvy out something that is being hidden. And we are still not entirely sure what is being hidden. The concern, or the real problem, I have in all of this process—and I do not think there is a big conspiracy or anything like that; I always go for the stuff-up rather than the conspiracy—is what this process is doing to the reputation of Canberra as a place to do business, especially for people who look at Canberra and think, “Perhaps we will test our arm in this place.”
What is evolving in this fiasco is that people, wittingly or not, play favourites. They give preferential advice to some people over others. There is no way this minister can put it together in any other way. Some people, whether they held their mouth the right way, crossed their fingers the right way or whatever, got different advice. This is a problem for this minister and for the reputation of this city. It is not the first time he has had this problem. For those of us who have a long memory, we saw him preside over the fiasco of Harrison stage 1—the auction, the fiddling around and the eventual re-auctioning—that cost people in this town considerable amounts of money and ruined reputations. I think there are people who have not recovered from it. You would have thought he might have learnt something by then and by this process. He took a million dollars from that man, which has never gone back to him.
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