Page 1031 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 6 May 2014
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MR COE (Ginninderra) (10.11): Madam Speaker, there are a couple of things I want to touch on today. Firstly, for Mr Rattenbury’s benefit—he was not here just then in the chamber and I think it is important that Mr Rattenbury hears this fact—Minister Corbell has just said that he has seen minutes for the committee meeting, he has quoted minutes and yet the minutes have not been published. The minutes have not left the committee; the minutes are not online. How did this minister—the minister the committee is meant to be advising—see these confidential documents? That is a very serious issue. It is a serious issue that Minister Corbell simply neglects the role of the committee, and it is potentially also a very serious concern that somebody in the committee has leaked the minutes to Minister Corbell for political gain. Minister Corbell has either misled the Assembly and he has not seen the minutes or he has seen the minutes and somebody in the committee has leaked them to him. Either way, it is disorderly for Minister Corbell to be talking about minutes prior to them being published.
As to the substance of the issue—the inquiry into the bill—I want to extend my thanks to the committee secretary, Margie Morrison, and to the committee office in general as well as to Hansard and the parliamentary library for their work in making this inquiry happen so quickly. It was a particularly short inquiry which involved everyone working at a very quick pace.
On 8 April I said:
It is a sham to expect that this bill could be referred to the planning committee today—8 April—and have it report back by 6 May having advertised, sought submissions, received submissions, held public hearings, written a draft report, discussed the draft report, agreed to the draft report and have it presented.
In fact, Madam Speaker, I think all the witnesses and submissions complained about the short committee inquiry. In fact, Ms Caroline Le Couteur said:
I do not think there has been sufficient public consultation on this bill.
The President of the ACT Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects said:
A failure by the Committee to allow appropriate time for the preparation of submissions from interested parties makes the whole purpose of referring the matter to the Committee for ingenuous and, engaging in public consultation impossible.
The Planning Institute said:
… our concern here is that what we consider to be a significant piece of legislation was not communicated and was not consulted on. As a peak body with an interest in planning we would have hoped that someone might have thought that perhaps we should be consulted.
Dr Kwiatkowski said:
… I just want to add that I am very disappointed at the lack of consultation around this bill. It is good that now there is a process in place, but originally the
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