Hope Valley Reservoir

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Environment. Why wasn't I allowed to be on the reference committee? I was told members of parliament weren't able to be on that, and I wasn't included in any information on the reservoir.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:54): Well, I always think that the members of parliament operate in quite an elite position within our community and have access to huge amounts of information, and as a consequence—

Mr Szakacs: You're beyond criticism, that's how elite you are.

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —should not be looking over the shoulders of community members when they are working through these issues. We wanted to co-design this with the community. This is my approach to community engagement and, if people don't like it, well that's it.

I think there is an imbalance of power when you have community leaders and members of parliament involved. We wanted to delegate the design of this reservoir and that precinct to the community. That is an approach that certainly we have taken with the other reservoirs as well, and while I provided opening commentary and essentially passed the baton to members of the community—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee is on two warnings.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —I certainly haven't been involved, nor has the member for Newland, nor the member for King, nor the member down south at Happy Valley, the member for Davenport. We did not want to make the community feel that we had particular views one way or the other. We wanted the community to organically shape these precincts, and that is best practice community engagement.

While I don’t think the member for Florey would have provided undue influence to that process, because I don't think that is her approach whatsoever, there have been opportunities to talk through this and not have members of parliament involved. As I say, that is the approach we will have with all these reservoir openings. I will pass the baton to the partnership of community members who will in turn provide advice to the government, and then we will move forward with the opening.