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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-12 Daily Xml
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Motions

Kangaroo Island Wharf Facility

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (11:51): I move:

That a select committee of the House of Assembly be established to inquire into and report on:

(a) the conduct of the Attorney-General and Minister for Planning in relation to the application by Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers to build a deepwater port facility at Smith Bay, Kangaroo Island;

(b) statements made by the Attorney-General and Minister for Planning to the House of Assembly, including the estimates committee, in relation to her consideration of the application by Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers to build a deepwater port facility at Smith Bay, Kangaroo Island;

(c) statements made by the Attorney-General and Minister for Planning to the House of Assembly, including the estimates committee, in relation to her knowledge of the contents of the State Planning Commission's assessment report on the Smith Bay port facility application;

(d) statements made by the Attorney-General and Minister for Planning to the House of Assembly, including the estimates committee, in relation to her knowledge of a report commissioned by the government on potential port sites in Kangaroo Island;

(e) statements made by the Attorney-General and Minister for Planning to the House of Assembly in relation to the ownership of land on Kangaroo Island by herself, her relatives or any of her related entities;

(f) statements made by the Attorney-General and Minister for Planning to the House of Assembly in relation to her knowledge of the transport routes to the proposed wharf, in particular, the proximity of such routes to property owned by the Mayor of Kangaroo Island;

(g) any conflict of interest, including identification, disclosure and management of conflict, or abuse of office by the Deputy Premier, Attorney-General and Minister for Planning in relation to her decision to reject the application by Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers to build a port facility at Smith Bay;

(h) any failure to report and disclose any pecuniary interest;

(i) any breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct or any breach of statute; and

(j) any other relevant matter.

The committee may appoint senior counsel to assist it, with the Speaker to approve the terms and conditions of the appointment as established by the committee, and such counsel assisting the committee may examine witnesses before the committee, and for that purpose may attend all meetings of the committee and participate in the committee's deliberations.

The SPEAKER: Is the member able to provide a copy of the motion so that it might be copied and circulated? The motion, in an appropriate form, has been provided. I have asked that it be now copied and circulated.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It is clear through the estimates process and answers given to the House of Assembly that we, the opposition, have sighted evidence and material that we believe warrant a select committee to investigate the conduct of the Attorney-General and Deputy Premier in her assessment of this application—whether, in fact, there is a deep conflict within her decision-making processes and whether, indeed, the parliament has been misled.

The opposition attempted to do this by a privileges motion and we sought your concurrence to give it precedence. You chose not to go down that path, sir. The opposition is in receipt of evidence that we believe confirms our suspicions that the Deputy Premier has indeed acted inappropriately in considering this matter.

We believe the way to flesh this out, of course, is to call witnesses, including the Attorney-General, her staff, members of the department, the Planning Commission and any other relevant agency to interrogate them and find out exactly at what depth and level this parliament may have been misled, whether there have been any abuses of office by the Attorney-General and Deputy Premier and whether or not the committee should recommend sanction against the Deputy Premier, either by the house or any other body.

This is a very serious and grave accusation that the opposition are making, but the only way we can get to the bottom of this is by a thorough and independent inquiry. The government will not launch an independent inquiry into this, so the house must take this into its own hands. The house must investigate this. If we do not, we will not get to the truth. We will not know exactly what has occurred. We cannot have planning ministers acting in their own self-interest.

I am sure that if the Attorney-General has evidence to exonerate herself she will provide that to the committee willingly and there will be no claims of executive privilege. Of course, this house will exercise its claims over all documents held by the executive to make sure that they are presented to the committee in a timely way. Hopefully, this committee can deliberate quickly and establish itself to get to the bottom of this to make sure that the people of South Australia know that we are all equal before the law and that some people are not more equal than others.

I commend this motion to establish a select committee to the house and I ask for unanimous support. I suspect I will not have unanimous support, but I do expect to have majority support.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (11:56): Unsurprisingly, the government does not support this politically motivated mudslinging and fishing expedition proposed by members opposite. It is absolutely true that no-one is more or less equal under the law. Absolutely that is the case. We subscribe to that entirely, but when the member opposite says that he wants to establish this committee to 'determine what depth the parliament was misled' there is no equality or fairness under this committee that this member seeks to put forward. It is very clear he has already made up his mind. He has already made up his mind; on what basis, who knows? We support the Attorney-General.

This is an issue that has been considered in this chamber already. This is an issue that the opposition has put forward through a privileges motion, fully considered and rejected. This is not new news with regard to the opposition trying to go fishing, to throw spurious suggestions out there, to try to throw a whole pile of mud and hope that some of it sticks. That is a completely inappropriate use of this parliament's time and of this parliament's resources in a select committee that the opposition suggests be established.

This issue has been canvassed in this chamber, it has been canvassed in the media and it has been canvassed in other ways and there is absolutely nothing that we are aware of to suggest that this select committee should proceed. So again for the member opposite to say 'Oh, well, we will just put this select committee up and if it's all okay we will just find that out' is very akin to some of the questions that we get in question time from the opposition. The opposition just says, 'Is it true, (a)? Is it true, (b)? Is it true, (c)?' knowing that those things are not true. It just throws them out hoping that somehow the mud will stick and there might be a headline talking about the accusations rather than the substance.

We will not support and we do not support the wasting of this parliament's time and committee resources, time and effort to see whether, hypothetically, some of the member for West Torrens's spurious accusations can get some traction. This issue has been considered already, this issue has been rejected already. What the member for West Torrens, the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite seek to do is a complete abuse of the processes of this parliament and the government rejects the proposal.

Ms MICHAELS (Enfield) (12:00): I rise to speak in support of the motion moved by the member for West Torrens. In circumstances that I think are extraordinary, an entire industry—in fact, one of the largest industries on Kangaroo Island—has been killed off by a stroke of the minister's pen.

In the face of a report by an independent body, the State Planning Commission, which was the culmination of several years of investigation and assessment by multiple government departments and which ultimately formed the view that the Smith Bay port should be approved, we have to ask ourselves why the minister chose to refuse the application.

Why would the minister make a decision that flies in the face of expert advice? The only way we can uncover the truth here is with the establishment of a select committee to investigate what really happened, what influenced the minister's decision and whether the minister intentionally misled parliament in estimates and in this chamber in questions without notice.

The impact of this decision for the island is significant. The minister's decision has seemingly gone down the path of picking winners and, by implication, picking losers—all in the face of what appears to be significant property interests held by the minister, her family and her friends. We need to know what the impacts, financial or otherwise, are to those landowners from this decision. In fact, there were properties transferred by the minister in the very week of her making this decision—an extraordinary situation that we must get to the bottom of.

It is imperative that we have a select committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the minister's decision and her statements to this place that, on the face of it, appear inconsistent and curious, to say the least. We need to get to the bottom of this, and the way to do that is for the house to investigate. If the minister has nothing to fear from this inquiry, it will find nothing, but there are too many questions and we need answers, and we need to start this investigation straightaway.

The house is aware that I previously asked questions of the minister about the Smith Bay port application. As a result of the minister's answer, I also raised concerns about the potential misleading of the house and the estimates committee by the minister. The concerns raised were, firstly, the claim by the minister, in answer to a question regarding the assessment report, that this report only asked the minister to 'note' the report and the report never asked the minister to approve anything. I draw the attention of the house to page 8 of the assessment report, which states:

On this basis, whilst finely balanced, it is concluded that the proposal should be granted provisional development authorisation, subject to conditions.

Further, at page 182, the assessment report states:

On balance, the AR [assessment report] concludes that the proposal can be supported subject to additional requirements (including reserved matters for further assessment) and conditions as set out in the next section.

Secondly, there is the claim by the minister, as she stated in estimates, that she had a 'good read' of the report. She then stated, 'I am not sure whether there are any recommendations as yet,' and claimed that the report asked the minister to simply 'note' the report. If the minister had a good read of the report, as stated in the estimates committee, she must have read the 56 recommendations in the assessment report. Further, there is, in fact, no recommendation in the report asking the minister to 'note' it.

Thirdly, the minister claimed that the government had not commissioned its own assessment of the best location for a port to export timber from Kangaroo Island. This answer was in direct response to two questions: one asking the minister whether the government had ever commissioned its own assessment of a best location for a port to export timber from KI and a supplementary question as to whether there had ever been a process undertaken by government to look at where an ideal port would be located. The minister's answer was, and I quote, 'In direct answer to that question, no.'

The report, which as I have stated the minister told us in estimates she had had a good read of, on page 30 states:

To assist in the assessment and for the purposes of providing sector expertise additional to that available within government, Wavelength Consulting Pty Ltd was engaged separately by the former Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure to undertake an independent desktop review of potential port sites to determine whether Smith Bay was an appropriate site for a wharf and port facility and to test the viability of alternative sites identified in submissions, as required by the Guidelines.

If she had read the report, as she stated in estimates, the minister would have known there was at least one government report that existed.

Fourthly, it is public knowledge that the minister and her family have for decades lived on the island and have land ownership on Kangaroo Island. When asked whether the minister or any relative or any related entity owned land on Kangaroo Island in an area near or impacted by the KIPT forests, the minister stated, and I quote, 'In short, no.'

The house should note that the minister received the assessment report in the last week of July and made the decision not to approve the application on 9 August. During this period of time there were four parcels of land where the ownership was transferred to relatives of the minister and her broader family.

It is of concern that these land transactions occurred between the time the minister received the report and made the decision not to approve the application. KIPT had been in this process with the government for approximately five years, and in this time—of just over a week—the land was transferred to relatives of the minister after receiving the report and before publicly stating her decision had been made.

Even though these parcels of land and other parcels owned by the minister and her family are within 10 kilometres of the KIPT plantations and, I understand, some are within hundreds of metres of the forests, the minister claimed there would be no impact by her decision. The impact of the forestry trucks alone cannot be ignored by any reasonable person.

Lastly, the minister told the house she was aware where Mr Pengilly, the Kangaroo Island mayor, lived and had in fact visited that property numerous times. The minister also claimed:

I think there was a question raised recently as to some transport issue in relation to this project and whether he would be affected by that. My understanding, the contribution on that, is that there is no proposed route past his house for loads of trucks in relation to that.

Members should note that page 153 of the assessment report—the one the minister stated she had had a good read of—makes it clear the Department for Infrastructure and Transport and the proponent, KIPT, had agreed on a preferred route which was going directly past Mr Pengilly's home on North Coast Road. In fact, there is a map of the proposed route on page 153. It is also worth noting that Mr Pengilly's property in part overlooks Smith Bay, which is the site of the proposed development.

It was this route past Mr Pengilly's home that was to be used by the forestry trucks if this project was approved. Having read the assessment report, this should have been well known to the minister. Of course, the close, longstanding friendship between the minister and her factional ally, the mayor, gives rise to concerns about a conflict of interest for the minister, given her decision means an enormous amount of forestry truck movement past the Pengilly property over a 25-year period will now not occur and the views of Smith Bay from the Pengilly property will now not be impacted.

While the Minister for Planning made the decision, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Local Government also saw that information, as they are of course one and the same person. The Attorney-General is the highest law officer in this state and has to be beyond reproach. Meanwhile, the Minister for Local Government should take action if they see a conflict of interest in local government.

All these concerns warrant a detailed investigation by the select committee. All these matters also give rise to possible breaches of the Ministerial Code of Conduct, but of course, with a minority government, the Premier, with the need of the Deputy Premier's factional support, is unlikely to act; hence, the need for this committee to be established.

Finally, I make the point that KIPT, as an ASX-listed company, having spent over $5 million and five years on this approval process, needs to be considered with some respect. This project was a major project where the Minister for Planning decides the issue. It is not cabinet, it is not the house: it is just one person who makes this decision, so in these circumstances the process has to be free from conflicts of interest and misleading statements. If the minister made misleading statements, she not only misled the house but she also misled KIPT and their shareholders and the public as well. On this basis, I seek the house's support for this motion.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 24

Noes 21

Majority 3

AYES
Bedford, F.E. Bell, T.S. Bettison, Z.L.
Bignell, L.W.K. Boyer, B.I. Brock, G.G.
Brown, M.E. (teller) Close, S.E. Cook, N.F.
Cregan, D. Duluk, S. Gee, J.P.
Hildyard, K.A. Hughes, E.J. Koutsantonis, A.
Malinauskas, P. Michaels, A. Mullighan, S.C.
Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, A. Picton, C.J.
Stinson, J.M. Szakacs, J.K. Wortley, D.
NOES
Basham, D.K.B. Chapman, V.A. Cowdrey, M.J.
Gardner, J.A.W. Harvey, R.M. (teller) Knoll, S.K.
Luethen, P. Marshall, S.S. McBride, N.
Murray, S. Patterson, S.J.R. Pederick, A.S.
Pisoni, D.G. Power, C. Sanderson, R.
Speirs, D.J. Tarzia, V.A. Treloar, P.A.
van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Whetstone, T.J. Wingard, C.L.

Motion thus carried.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (12:16): I move:

That the select committee be appointed consisting of Ms Michaels, Mr Duluk, Mr Cowdrey, Mr Treloar and the mover.

Motion carried.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I move:

That the select committee have power to send for persons, papers and records and to adjourn from place to place and that it report on 18 November 2021.

Motion carried.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I move:

That standing order 339 be and remain so far suspended as to enable the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication as it sees fit of any evidence presented to the committee prior to such evidence being reported to the house.

Motion carried.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: By leave, I move:

That the committee have leave to sit during the sitting of the house today.

Ayes 24

Noes 21

Majority 3

AYES
Bedford, F.E. Bell, T.S. Bettison, Z.L.
Bignell, L.W.K. Boyer, B.I. Brock, G.G.
Brown, M.E. (teller) Close, S.E. Cook, N.F.
Cregan, D. Duluk, S. Gee, J.P.
Hildyard, K.A. Hughes, E.J. Koutsantonis, A.
Malinauskas, P. Michaels, A. Mullighan, S.C.
Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, A. Picton, C.J.
Stinson, J.M. Szakacs, J.K. Wortley, D.
NOES
Basham, D.K.B. Chapman, V.A. Cowdrey, M.J.
Gardner, J.A.W. Harvey, R.M. (teller) Knoll, S.K.
Luethen, P. Marshall, S.S. McBride, N.
Murray, S. Patterson, S.J.R. Pederick, A.S.
Pisoni, D.G. Power, C. Sanderson, R.
Speirs, D.J. Tarzia, V.A. Treloar, P.A.
van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Whetstone, T.J. Wingard, C.L.
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