Page 2480 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014

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Mr Corbell: Mr Smyth is being deliberately argumentative. You have made your ruling and he is now defying your ruling. Mr Smyth should either accept your ruling or move dissent to your ruling. Those are the two choices open to him.

Mr Hanson: On a point of order, during that previous point of order, we had repeated interjections from the Chief Minister and from the manager of government business saying, “Suck it up, suck it up.” If you are going to be consistent in this place, I ask that you address those interjections, which are clearly unparliamentary.

MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Hanson. Mr Smyth.

MR SMYTH: The issue here, Mr Assistant Speaker, is that the Chief Minister has not given us a reason for her inability to deliver on the policy she has signed up to, that the Greens have signed up to and that the Canberra Liberals have signed up to. It is not that hard. We have another motion here—here we are, last year, this year—and I still wait and wonder whether we will do it next year and the year after. It will be interesting to see when the Chief Minister will determine how she ends this internal stoush they are clearly having so we can actually all move on and benefit the environment of the ACT.

MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (3.46): I am pleased to hear there continues to be tripartisan support for a single integrated conservation agency in the Assembly. I certainly appreciate the continued interest of the Canberra Liberals in this matter. It is surprising to see a third motion in 18 months come forward on this matter, but I guess that clearly demonstrates an interest on the part of the Canberra Liberals in at least the politics of it, if not the substance.

I agree it is frustrating that this issue has not been resolved by now but, as we discussed last time we spoke about this matter—and I certainly made the point—there is a level of complexity to picking through the right allocation of resources between different agencies in terms of getting the best possible outcomes for the environment. My focus in this matter is ensuring that we get the best outcomes for the environment in this city.

The original position of having the single conservation agency was one the Greens supported at the last election. The Canberra Liberals underlined the fact today that they also had that as policy, and it was supported by a range of stakeholder groups. I do not think that position has changed for anybody. The very practical question is what that looks like on the ground in terms of which directorate resources sit in which place. These matters are being worked on.

The Chief Minister indicated in her remarks that she retains a commitment to this. I accept that. I work with the Chief Minister on a range of matters in our parliamentary agreement and we have a very clear understanding of moving forward on those things. Some of them take more time. A number of matters in the parliamentary agreement have proved to be more complex than we perhaps originally anticipated or have taken a little while while we are getting the resources in place for them. It sometimes takes a bit longer than we might have hoped, but that does not mean we are not continuing to progress these matters.


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