Page 113 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 February 2007
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I opposed these amendments when they were initially introduced and I will oppose them again today. They remove appeal rights for community groups under the cloak of removing them from commercial interests who have apparently been abusing the appeals process. I accept that commercial interests use all legal avenues at their disposal to pursue their personal gain and that they will see holding up a competitor’s development with unmeritorious appeals as fair game.
I have moved my anti-SLAPP bill in this Assembly because I am fully aware that corporate interests have been abusing various civil law actions in order to intimidate and divert the resources of community activists. But just because some corporate interests have been abusing the planning process, why should community groups and civic-minded individuals be barred from giving their input to the merits of various development proposals?
Earlier today, Minister Barr was talking about the importance of natural justice. Where was the natural justice in Austexx being told again and again that they would be allowed to build a massive retail development in what everyone assumed was an industrial area? Only the ACT government and its agency thought the planning laws permitted a retail development. The huge billboard that still stands next to the EpiCentre site advertises that it is for a bulky goods development. At least that is consistent with all the advertising for the sale. It clearly stated that the sale was a bulky goods opportunity. It is also consistent with the legal advice received by the parties interested in bidding for that site.
The NCA did not know the planning laws had apparently changed. We wait with interest to see whether the NCA finds that the purported planning change is consistent with the national capital plan. But the most telling fact of all, which puts paid to the government’s outrageous assertions that everyone knew that massive retail development was permitted on the site, is the fact that Austexx’s own legal advice from a New South Wales Bar Council barrister, Richard Lancaster, was—
Mr Corbell: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is an issue of relevance in this debate. The issue of the Auditor-General’s report is not the subject of debate today. Whilst the development at the Austexx site in Fyshwick is a subject affected by the proposed legislation, I do not think it is open to Dr Foskey to completely revisit that entire debate. We have had the debate about Austexx and about the sale process. This legislation has nothing to do with the sale process. It sounds to me, Mr Speaker, that Dr Foskey is unhappy that the Auditor-General found that the government acted appropriately in that sale process.
MR SPEAKER: Confine yourself to the bill which is in front of us, please, Dr Foskey.
DR FOSKEY: I think that what we are being told about the bill by the government is one thing and what the opposition and I see in this bill is another. I do feel that it is valid for us, for me in this case, to pursue these matters. I note that Mr Seselja touched on them as well in his speech, perhaps not to the same extent.
MR SPEAKER: We do not need to reflect on a previous debate, Dr Foskey.
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