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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-12-03 Daily Xml
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Question Time

TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT TOUR

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about the TOD tour that was conducted earlier this year in May.

Leave granted.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Two days ago the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure Annual Report: Overseas Travel was tabled, and I note that there was one person who participated in the transit oriented development tour of America and Europe for a price of $34,609.

Members will be aware that there has been some speculation about the members who went on this particular tour, including the non-attendance by minister Conlon at a number of functions and site visits. Minister Conlon and minister Holloway were the two ministers who made the visit, and I think minister Holloway's wife attended with him. I am told that minister Holloway and his wife were probably very good at attending functions.

I am told that there were in excess of 20 functions and events minister Conlon did not attend. In fact, a question was asked during estimates about whether he had made certain visits; he said that he had not and that, particularly to one tram engineering works, he had his own itinerary.

The opposition FOI'd minister Conlon's itinerary and checked it against the formal itinerary that has been released. It appears that the only differences in the itineraries were a lunch on 18 May with Fred Hansen, the current Thinker in Residence, and a dinner on 22 May, with the Australian Ambassador to the US; on 30 May, at the end of the tour, a change in the minister's itinerary was that he went to London and stayed at the Royal Horseguards Hotel, while the rest of the delegation flew back via Singapore.

I am also advised that, between the US and the European legs of the visit, minister Holloway spoke to minister Conlon about his behaviour and told him that he should 'pull his socks up on his trip to Europe'. My questions are:

1. Did the minister speak to minister Conlon about his behaviour?

2. Does he accept minister Conlon's statement that his itinerary was not the same as that of the others, given that the FOI shows that it was virtually the same, bar one lunch and one dinner?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (14:26): I certainly do not—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! I am sure that the minister will explain this without the help of the government benches.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I do not need to tell my colleagues how to behave, and I certainly did not need to, nor indeed would I, speak to minister Conlon in relation to that. With respect to the preamble to the question about the cost of the tour, I think it should be borne in mind that some of the cost was also spent on arranging a number of meetings with various transport experts.

One of the great benefits of the TOD tour was that we had a party of more than 30 people that included a wide variety of decision-makers in this state. There was a combination of developers, planners and local government officials, such as Felicity-ann Lewis and Mark Withers (an elected member and a CEO of a council), as well as a number of other people. The great thing that resulted from the meetings that were arranged was that all those people had the benefit of the briefings in relation to the cities we visited. It was a very efficient way of doing it, and we believe that, as a result, the state will get the benefit.

I think that it needs to be put on the record that that is likely to have been part of the cost, but it was money very well spent given, as I said, that more than 30 of the key decision-makers in this state within various aspects of the development industry had the benefit of all those things. The honourable member's assertion is quite incorrect. I have answered this question on previous occasions, but I indicate that there were several—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: If you do not want to listen, what is the point?

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