Page 1426 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2016
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
something that would be very beneficial and would be a much better approach than the very politicised approach we are seeing to try to re-establish the Australian building and construction commission, a clearly politically motivated mechanism and something like an independent commission against corruption. It is actually about tackling corruption in all its forms, not just the politically motivated version that one political party might think is out there.
Mr Hanson, as he is wont to do, is sitting on that side of the chamber making the sorts of noises you would hear in a school classroom. But it is actually, if you are truly honest with yourself, the sort of approach, if you are honest and fair dinkum about this, that you would get behind, supporting that. It is a truly objective approach to dealing with the sorts of issues that unfortunately we see allegations of from time to time in this country.
I urge colleagues in this chamber to support their colleagues in the chamber up on the hill and support that initiative from the Greens. It is something that would benefit this country; that would take the politics out of some of those sorts of disputes and enable a fair assessment of them.
Certainly there are other mechanisms. As members know, I am currently working on revised freedom of information legislation. Again, that is designed to provide the sorts of mechanisms that can provide a level of scrutiny and a level of openness that allow members in this place to scrutinise others and also allow members of the public and members of the press to provide an enhanced level of scrutiny. There is always scope for trying to do these things better; I think we all learn as we go that there are ways to improve scrutiny in this place.
I am sure this will be a continued point of debate, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss these mechanisms today. I think that all of us might reflect at different times on how things can be done better. I am always open to discussions with members in this place as to how we might improve the current mechanisms that we have in place where we think that there are shortcomings.
Discussion concluded.
Planning, Building and Environment Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
Debate resumed from 7 April 2016, on motion by Mr Gentleman:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (3.49): This bill forms an important part of maintaining and enhancing the standard of ACT building, environment and planning law. It enables legislative amendments and repeals to be made that would generally not be of sufficient importance to justify separate legislation. This is the 10th planning, building and environment legislation amendment bill, and this bill proposes a raft of minor policy, technical and editorial amendments to a range of legislation. I propose to touch on a few of the ones I think are the more substantive policy issues to discuss in the chamber today.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video