Page 2505 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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ACT at risk. The billions of dollars that the government is spending on building a tram network that we do not necessarily need should be put elsewhere. This project should be cancelled as part of a plan to restore the ACT’s financial stability.
I would like to turn now to Access Canberra. Currently, this Labor-Greens government has seven ministers in a nine-member government. It must be the most top-heavy government in Australia, if not the world. Despite all those ministers, power has never been more centralised than it now is in the Chief Minister’s office.
If you look at the administrative orders, the power concentrated in Mr Barr’s hands through Access Canberra is very significant. The administrative orders show that Mr Barr has ministerial responsibility through Access Canberra for the following areas: building utilities and lease regulation; electricity, gas, water and sewerage industry technical regulation; environment protection and water regulation; fair trading and registration, inspection and regulatory services; occupational building licences; public health protection and food regulation; public unleased land regulation; gaming and racing regulation; and WorkSafe ACT. These powers give Mr Barr responsibility for a whole range of areas in which his ministers also claim responsibility. For example, Mr Barr is responsible for gaming and racing regulation despite the fact that Mr Gentleman is nominally the minister for gaming and racing.
In October last year, we saw Mr Greg Jones go as gaming and racing commissioner, to be replaced by the chief operating officer of Access Canberra. Staffing at the gaming and racing commission has fallen by 28 per cent. If you follow the debate over allowing the casino to have poker machines, it is clear that Mr Barr is in charge of gaming and racing and that Mr Gentleman is minister in name only. The gaming and racing commission has lost any independence it had when it was established.
Mr Barr has centralised power to his office to such an extent that it is questionable whether the public service can continue to provide frank and fearless advice. There is a risk that the public service, through Mr Barr’s power-hungry Access Canberra, will tell Mr Barr what he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear.
By way of example, let me turn briefly to planning. (Second speaking period taken.)
Last Saturday’s Canberra Times reported Clive Hamilton, the president of the Friends of Manuka Pool, as saying this about the government backflip on Manuka Oval:
The whole ACT planning process has an unpleasant smell about it. This will save Manuka, but with an election coming up nothing will save the chief minister.
It is notable that just about everyone thinks that Mr Barr is running the planning process through the LDA and the unsolicited bid process.
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Consider this, Madam Deputy Speaker. Mr Barr is losing the most capable of his ministers at this election due to factional games in the Labor Party. If the Labor-Greens coalition government is re-elected, it will be a one-man band. People who are thinking of voting and getting rid of the Chief Minister in a couple of months should remember the simple formula that Labor plus the Greens equals Andrew Barr.
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