Page 2094 - Week 06 - Thursday, 26 June 2008
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into saying the second time was wrong. He took the principled step of writing to the chair himself—not through the minister or anyone else, but himself—to set the record straight, and I thank him for that. That is the way I have come to expect ACT public officials to behave. That is generally the way that they behave, and his behaviour was exemplary.
But the Chief Minister sat there through that. He saw the way that the acting director of the LDA was bullied—the acting director was not scheduled to be at the table; he came into this at the last minute because somebody was taken sick—and he let that happen because it was convenient for him at the time. It was convenient for him to close down this line of questioning because the whole issue of site selection is one that has caused considerable embarrassment to the Chief Minister and will continue to do so until he admits to himself, to this Assembly and to the people of the ACT that his intervention was misplaced, that he got it wrong and that the people of the ACT are the people who are suffering as a result of it.
In addition to the Chief Minister’s involvement, we had the usual constant saga. It was a case of pick a minister, any minister, and we would suddenly find that they had their fingers all over things. The minister for disability services, wearing her disability services cap, had not been briefed about disability services. At that stage, as Minister for Health, she had not been briefed on health. She was so unbriefed as Minister for Health that she would not let Mr Smyth and me ask questions of the Chief Health Officer about the impact of pollutants.
But it was revealing that, as minister for disability services, she was able to tell us that, yes, they had considered the relocation of Symonston House lock, stock and barrel because of its proximity to the gas-fired power station. We contrast that with the fact that it was not reasonable to notify the neighbours just over the hill of the existence of the gas-fired power station, and most of those people only found out about it when a horse owner noticed the small yellow sign.
This was a constant problem with the estimates process. Every time Mr Smyth and I and other members—Dr Foskey and, from time to time, Mr Mulcahy—got onto a line of questioning, the chair of the committee would find a way for the subject to be moved on. She would say: “Look at the clock. We have to move on.” What that really meant was: “Let’s not worry about the truth. The main thing is that we work by the clock in the Mary Porter school of time and motion. We just have to move on so that we can run protection for our ministers who are starting to find it a little uncomfortable.”
The other standout issue in the estimates process from my point of view—I am sure that Mr Pratt will dwell upon this at some length when we come to the ESA lines—is the issue of the mishandling of the transfer of the ESA headquarters to Fairbairn. As a member, I keep as much interest as I can in as many portfolios as possible, but I do not have an up-to-date knowledge of what is going on in the same way that the minister would or that Mr Pratt, as the shadow minister, does, but I was stunned to hear that, in fact, in excess of $170,000 a month is being paid on rent for buildings which are empty, and have been empty for many months.
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