Page 4301 - Week 13 - Thursday, 4 December 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
who came to the committee said they had been told by a senior government appointment that the committee process was just a rubber stamp. I reject that. It never was, from the committee’s point of view, to be a rubber stamp, and I think the recommendations prove that it is not. But it is unfortunate if people felt that the Assembly committee had been reduced to a rubber stamp for the government.
With respect to the process of selection, there was a short time frame. The committee asked the government to send an email to all affected residents. I understand it was put in the weekly newsletter. It would appear some people did not see it until it was too late. For that I apologise. It was never the intention to exclude anyone. Basically in a week we got 60 submissions, and more are still coming in, and the committee will resolve to publish them at an appropriate time. But at a six per cent return, that is a great effort by these people in that week, and some of them were quite amazing.
If you have not read them, Mrs Pilkington appeared. In her submission, she has done an analysis, she has done tables—she has done all the work. If she does not want to continue in her current role she probably could be a land economist, having regard to the way she was going—self-taught, mind you. She brought, I think, a bit of laughter to the committee in the work that she had done.
It was not all sombre, Madam Speaker. There were a few lighter moments, particularly as we were reading the report yesterday afternoon and trying to correct the proof. We invented a new word, “demolishment”, which is not in the report but we all had a good laugh at that. This will please Mr Barr: in one reference the Treasurer lost his final “r”, so he was the “Treasure”. Images of Mr Barr’s nanna calling him “the little treasure” permeated the committee room. It was a light moment in a pretty heavy week. Therefore, from this time forth, the Treasurer can be acknowledged here in this place.
For a lot of those who appeared there was a bit of humour there; they had not given up. No matter how dour it got, they kept their hopes up and they brought some humour and laughter into the room, which was great.
With respect to the process of selection of those who got to speak, before we saw any submissions the committee determined that we would––and in this case it was done by Dr Lloyd—divide the submissions up into different groups—young families, recent purchasers, long-term purchasers, retired, singles, couples, special circumstance type folks, people who had particular issues.
Indeed there is one rec, which will forever now be known as “the Challenger rec”, where a couple, through no fault of their own, was forced to sell at a great discount on their block. It cost them about $80,000. There is a rec that the government look at that case in particular. Nobody should be left out as we try to fix this up.
We put all of the groups into different categories and the committee selected from those groups. So I take full responsibility, on behalf of the committee, for those who attended. And if you did not get to attend, I do apologise. We just did not have the time to do it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video