Page 2614 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 2 July 2008
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The conduct of the government has been appropriate at all times and the opposition is unable to prove otherwise. That is uncomfortable for you. I accept that it is uncomfortable. You have not got the smoking gun that you are after. That is unfortunate, because you have really stuck your neck out on this one.
Mr Pratt interjecting—
MS GALLAGHER: You are tying yourself to the tractor to stop it from ever happening. Don’t forget that. There is going to be a personal bondage arrangement on the front of a tractor to stop this project occurring.
Mr Pratt: Your officials have been lazy, at best.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Pratt!
MS GALLAGHER: Mr Pratt is already on the record. I would say that it is inappropriate for a member of the Legislative Assembly, while the community consultation process is going on, to take that view, when you do not have all the information available to you. None of us have, because we are still going through the process—
Mr Pratt: What was starkly clear—
MR SPEAKER: I warn you, Mr Pratt.
MS GALLAGHER: That is the process that has to be allowed to occur—an independent statutory planning process involving community consultation. The government has sought further work to feed into that process. That has been in response to community concerns, and I think there has been a reluctance to accept some of the studies that have been done by the proponents. We have responded to that.
Today, I made the announcement about the health impact assessment steering group and the eminent experts that will sit on that steering group and provide advice to the government, through me. I will provide that advice to the Minister for Planning or to ACTPLA, whatever the appropriate channel is, to feed into ACTPLA’s consideration of the overall project. That is the government’s role. It is an appropriate role. It is a role whereby broadly we support the project, but outside that we need to await the outcome of the processes that every project like this would go through, and that is the issue here.
I think the site selection and site identification matter has been done to death. If the opposition have anything new to add to this debate and can prove some of the allegations that Mr Smyth has laid on the table today—that is, that the Chief Minister inappropriately involved himself in an FOI, and that public servants inappropriately applied the principles of FOI law to that application—then I await with interest the ability of the Leader of the Opposition to substantiate those claims.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.07): It is difficult to know where to start when Ms Gallagher gets on her feet and throws all these things at us. As
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