Page 2477 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Party and the crossbench in this place. It really is a joke and you are essentially embarrassing yourselves with your absurdities.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (3.29): Mr Speaker, it is the standard tactic of the Chief Minister when he does not have a substantive argument to twist it into another issue. The other issue that he seeks to make this today is whether or not the Minister for Planning has complied with the planning act. Unfortunately for the Minister for Planning, as was so eloquently pointed out by Ms Le Couteur, this is not about the planning act. This is about the primacy of the Assembly. In fact, this is about Westminster. This is about accountability, and it is about understanding that the Assembly elects you as Chief Minister and the executive is ultimately responsible to the people of the ACT through this place. It is about accountability.
We now have 25 minutes almost from the Labor Party, and they are yet to discuss the motion itself. We have had a discourse on the planning act. Thank you. It is not about the planning act. It is about your ego or your cowardice and your inability to return to answer for your decisions. The Minister for Health is to be complimented. She came back and answered the questions. You answered your part of it. The Minister for Health, when she returned, quite made the point. Let me read this from paragraph 6.71 of the report:
The Minister for Health was asked if she agreed with the statement made by Mr Barr, had she ever communicated these opinions to the Minister for Planning, and to what effect she thought the objections to be ‘politically motivated or frivolous’. The Minister advised that she had not communicated these sentiments to Mr Barr.
It is not about political; it is not about frivolous. We have learnt the details on that. But this is about a minister being held accountable and coming back to the Assembly. Give the Chief Minister his due, when he was called back last year, he returned and answered the questions. So what is it about the Minister for Planning that he is above this process? A Chief Minister and a Deputy Chief Minister will come back. They obviously had some respect for the institution of the Assembly.
It is interesting that section 2 of the ministerial code of conduct with respect to the law and the system of government—this is the document that these ministers all signed up to—states:
Ministers will act with respect towards the institution of the Legislative Assembly …
Part of that intuition of the Assembly is its committee system. The Chief Minister is willing to return when called, the Minister for Health will return when she is called, but the Minister for Planning is above it. It does come back to being answerable for your decisions.
The discourse on the planning system was interesting, minister. What you did not make was a case as to why you are so special. It is easy to dismiss your arguments. You are not being held accountable for what may or may not happen under the planning act. You are actually being held accountable for the standing orders of the Assembly. The minister, in one of his standard tricks, says, “But you all voted for the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .