Page 2291 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order, members!
MR SMYTH: Mr Corbell raises the tip. I am glad you raised the tip because there is $850,000—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, direct your comments through the chair.
MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, you are right; I should ignore them. Mr Speaker, are you aware that there is $850,000 in this budget to search for a site for a new tip? The Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Mr Hargreaves, has set some parameters—that it cannot be seen anywhere and, oddly enough, it cannot be within a couple of kilometres of residences. So we are going to put a power station 660 metres from the Symonston respite facility and 900 metres from the people of Macarthur, but when it comes to the tip, it is a matter of saying, “No, we’re going to put that kilometres away.” This is the double standard of this government. Firstly, they do not talk to each other. Secondly, they ignored the advice of the great planning minister that they used to have, who set aside this block for five years because he knew that the appropriate use for this was something more similar to a broadacre. And a cemetery is quite fine; I think a cemetery gardens there would be lovely. A lot of other people think the same way.
People are not against development on this block. But Mr Hargreaves, in his wisdom—and I know that I have not said that often in this place—realised that, in this day and age, you are not going to site things like a tip too close to residential development. But that does not extend to the Chief Minister. He does not get that. In his desire to prove that he has broadened the economic base after seven years of neglect, he is willing to put the amenity of the people of south Woden and east Tuggeranong, and greater Tuggeranong and Woden, at great risk, as well as whatever will occur at Holt.
MR SPEAKER: I acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Mr Moore, a former MLA. Welcome, Mr Moore.
Mr Corbell interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, direct your comments through the chair, please, and point your finger at me, please.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (7.57): Indeed, Mr Speaker. I rise tonight to respond to a number of the issues that opposition members have raised in this debate. What I find most remarkable about the position of Liberal Party members on this matter is that they are the most amazing bunch of hypocrites that I have ever heard in this place, Mr Speaker.
Mrs Dunne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the phrase “amazing bunch of hypocrites” is unparliamentary.
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