Page 2761 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009

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MRS DUNNE: We have the Treasurer saying, “I’ve got a plan. I’ve got this plan; it’s in the budget papers.” But there really is not anything to the plan. There are four pages devoted to the plan, but there is nothing in it. It is a whole lot of rhetoric but there is no way forward—the same as there is no way forward with Mr Hargreaves and his policy on his approach to fireworks; there is no way forward with Mr Stanhope and his consultation on the Hawker shops; there is no way forward in relation to the centenary artwork because that has been shelved completely. But I do hope that we see a way forward for the major arts organisations and that they do not have their boards stymied by thoughtless carelessness on the part of the Stanhope government.

MR COE (Ginninderra) (8.32): I stand to correct the record on what a couple of members have said and what Mr Stanhope has done over the last few weeks with regard to OwnPlace. When it comes to an authority about what actually did happen, I can see no better resource than the Select Committee on Estimates report, volume 1, on Appropriation Bill 2009-2010. Page 45 starts to talk about what actually happened. Paragraph 4.48 states:

4.48 Questions were asked about allegations that house prices offered under the OwnPlace scheme had been marked-up by one of the builders. The Chief Minister advised that the claim was without foundation and had been dealt with appropriately by the Land Development Agency (LDA).

4.49 The Chief Minister undertook to write to the builders involved in the OwnPlace scheme, raising with them the concerns raised by the Committee. The Committee noted that in doing so, the Chief Minister misrepresented the Committee, claiming the Committee had made accusations rather than seeking clarification. The Committee also noted that the Chief Minister misrepresented the Committee during hearings, claiming that ‘defamatory allegations’ … had been made.

Let us go over a couple of those points again: the Chief Minister misrepresented the committee and the committee also noted that the Chief Minister misrepresented the committee during hearings, claiming that defamatory allegations had been made.

Paragraph 4.50 states:

The Committee noted that at no time did Committee members claim that the building companies involved in the scheme were ‘price gouging’, and that this term was first used by Deputy Chief Executive of the Chief Minister’s Department, Mr David Dawes.

Recommendation 34 at paragraph 4.55 states:

The Committee recommends that the Chief Minister, Mr Jon Stanhope MLA, correct the record concerning his misrepresentation of the letter that the Committee wrote to the Deputy Chief Executive of Business and Projects, Mr Dawes, on 27 May 2009.

Recommendation 35 at paragraph 4.56 states:


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