Page 3168 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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MR BARR: You have got no basis to be an authority on any of these questions, other than being the self-appointed world expert.
Mr Coe: Were you being sarcastic? That is a shame.
MR BARR: Indeed, yes, it was a bit of sarcasm, Mr Coe, on a Tuesday evening.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Coe, Mr Barr, the banter across the chamber can end.
MR BARR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. We will liven these things up every now and then.
Mr Coe: A bit unbecoming of the Chief Minister.
MR BARR: It is a bit unbecoming of the Leader of the Opposition too, I would have thought, but you set the standards for your own behaviour, Mr Coe. You have interjected throughout my speech.
Mr Coe: Alas, you are responding, though.
MR BARR: Yes, I should not engage too much with you, but it is too much fun on a Tuesday evening.
MADAM SPEAKER: I agree with that sentiment, Mr Barr.
MR BARR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. To conclude on this point, the issues that Mr Coe has raised are simply assertions and do not reflect the very strongly held view of the Icon Water board and executive and have been independently assessed by the ICRC.
In relation to the issues Ms Le Couteur has raised around shareholder engagement in these matters, there is a clear distinction between the planning process associated with the approval or otherwise of a specific development application and investments that may or may not be made two steps removed from Icon Water. Again, what Ms Le Couteur is asking of shareholder ministers is a level of intervention above and beyond what would have been exercised by any shareholder ministers in the history of these organisations. I suspect that that would be the case.
The question we all need to ask is to what extent we in this place are seeking to dictate to commercial entities that are quite a degree removed from the Icon Water shareholdings what projects they may or may not even consider, in the context of this debate. These are questions that are perfectly legitimate for public debate, but we need to think very carefully about whether this place is going to determine every single commercial investment decision that is made two or three steps removed from Icon Water.
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