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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-04-04 Daily Xml
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MOUNT BARKER DEVELOPMENT

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. M. Parnell:

That this council, pursuant to section 16(1)(a) of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, refers the following matters to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee for inquiry and report—

1. The processes followed by the Department of Planning and Local Government and the Minister for Urban Development and Planning in relation to development at Mount Barker and surrounding areas including—

(a) the Planning Strategy for the Outer Metropolitan Adelaide Region published in August 2006;

(b) the 2010 Planning Strategy (incorporating the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide); and

(c) the ministerial Mount Barker Urban Growth Development Plan amendment approved by the minister on 16 December 2010.

2. Whether any issues of conflict of interest involving the minister, the department, landowners, property developers, planning consultants or any other parties were identified in relation to future urban development at Mount Barker and surrounding areas and, if so, how such conflicts were avoided minimised or managed;

3. The adequacy of infrastructure planning and funding to support urban expansion at Mount Barker and surrounding areas; and

4. Any other matters the committee considers relevant.

(Continued from 14 March 2012.)

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (21:04): I move:

Leave out all words in the first three lines and insert the following in lieu thereof:

1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be appointed to inquire and report upon—

Renumber existing Paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4 to (a), (b), (c) and (d), and renumber existing subparagraphs (a), (b) and (c) to (i), (ii) and (iii).

Insert the following paragraphs—

2. Standing Order No. 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

4. Standing Order No. 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

Clearly there have been indications from the opposition that it did not support the motion in its original form, criticising the Greens for referring this issue to the ERD committee, which is a standing committee of this parliament, and pointing to the fact that the government had the numbers on that committee.

The amendments as moved enable the creation of a select committee to look at these most important matters of planning, strategy and decision processes around Mount Barker and its surrounds. That committee, of course, would be reflective of this council; that is, the opposition and the crossbenchers would indeed have the majority. With that, I indicate that the opposition and the crossbenchers should be supporting this motion before us.

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (21:07): I obviously rise on behalf of the government to respond to the motion of the Hon. Mark Parnell. New developments in Adelaide, such as Mount Barker, are crucial to growing our city, pursuing housing diversity and affordability and providing lifestyle choices.

Mount Barker has been progressively expanding over many years and has experienced some of the highest rates of growth in the greater Adelaide region, a good indicator of community housing preferences and lifestyle choices.

In relation to the provision of growth areas at Mount Barker, it reinforces the town's prominence as a regional centre for services provision and provides an ability to build on the range of social services available locally, consistent with the principles of self-containment. It has a strong transport connection with metropolitan Adelaide and it redirects growth pressures away from other smaller historic and character towns in the Adelaide Hills.

This development brings substantial investment to the Mount Barker community. I am advised that local, state and federal governments, together with developers, will invest over $500 million in the region. Property developers have indicated that they are prepared to provide a percentage of the profits towards the provision of community infrastructure. Without a certain level of population growth, Mount Barker will not receive this type of infrastructure spend.

I had the opportunity to mention last week during another motion of the Hon. Mark Parnell that the government has met with representatives of the Mount Barker council, and council has expressed its desire to progress a structure-planning exercise for an area covering Mount Barker, Littlehampton and Nairne.

I am informed that such structure planning work will assist in the delivery of a cohesive urban settlement and provide a basis for the timely provision of local services and infrastructure. Again, the changes to the Mount Barker development plan cannot be suspended, because the rezoning process is already complete. Any change to the current zoning would need a new development plan amendment (DPA) process, which would result in massive uncertainty, expose the government and taxpayer to potential legal action and deprive the Mount Barker community of the massive proposed infrastructure investment.

Again, as I mentioned, council is currently working on a structure planning exercise to provide a long-term vision for all of Mount Barker, Littlehampton and Nairne, not just the new growth areas. Once this plan is formally endorsed by the council, the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure will facilitate its consideration and feedback from other government agencies, particularly on the issues of utility and community infrastructure.

The government is happy to be already collaborating with the council on this structure planning exercise and sees no purpose in duplicating this process by starting all over again. So, let us be clear that the planning strategy—the plan that incorporated the new growth area at Mount Barker—went through extensive community consultation—arguably, the most extensive consultation of any previous planning strategy. The public consultation leading up to the plan's release was thorough and extensive.

A statutory consultation process was carried out over 13 weeks, and over 500 submissions were received from individuals, organisations, community groups and representatives of local government. In addition to this formal process, 21 workshops were carried out with local government to help develop the draft plan. Regional briefing sessions and focus group meetings were also held with key industry, professional and community groups throughout the consultation period and before the launch of the final plan. Council has provided the details of over 150 interest groups invited to attend these briefings.

The final plan reflected many of the comments received through this extensive consultation and briefing process. When the Minister for Planning (Hon. John Rau MP) took on the planning portfolio, he met with representatives from the Mount Barker council to discuss the rezoning. The minister accepted that the rezoning was needed to assist in accommodating our state's growing population. However, the minister advocated that the infrastructure to support the growing community must be put in place. The final deed to ensure appropriate infrastructure is, as we speak, about to be put in place.

Finally, on the issue of the honourable member wishing to refer matters concerning the inclusion of growth around Mount Barker in the planning strategy and the statutory processes undertaken for the Mount Barker Urban Growth DPA to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, I understand this afternoon he filed an amendment choosing to do something else. Clearly, I am not aware of that but, as I was speaking, it might have been courteous for him to let me know, but he chose not to.

I will place on record, seeing that the honourable member was considering sending it to the ERD Committee, that, of course, that committee (of which I am a member, as is the Hon. Mark Parnell) had previously considered the matter and resolved that it did not object. Of course, it is tasked with that legislative responsibility and it did not object to the amendment under the statutory procedures established within the Development Act 1993. For the very obvious reason that this plan has already been approved and the committee did not object, the government opposes this motion, and I would urge other members to do the same.

I understand that the Hon. Mark Parnell has sought the support of the opposition in this chamber, so he will have the numbers again to establish another select committee—well, maybe he will not. We will have to test the waters, but, given the smile on the Hon. David Ridgway's face, I suspect that they have done a deal, so we will see 12 select committees now in this chamber.

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola interjecting:

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: That's enough? Okay. Perhaps he has not made up his mind yet. Again, the government opposes the motion and urges other members to do the same.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (21:15): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak to the Hon. Mr Parnell's motion to refer the matters which we have discussed. He wished initially to refer it to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee. I was out of the chamber, but I think that his colleague the Hon. Tammy Franks moved an amendment to establish a select committee. It is an interesting one. The Mount Barker issue, we shall call it, from day one has created a deal of concern, certainly with the people in Mount Barker. The Hon. Mr Parnell, the Greens, its supporters and, indeed, the Liberal Party have been concerned at the magnitude and the size of the proposed expansion.

I was interested initially when the Hon. Mark Parnell wished to refer it to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee given that that committee is dominated by the Labor Party, chaired by a Labor member and I think rarely meets or, if it does, does not meet anywhere near as often as it did when Ivan Venning chaired it when the Liberal government was in office. In fact, Ivan Venning tells me, and I think that the Hon. John Dawkins —

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Ivan was the Chair, thank you very much.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): Forty meetings a year.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: And the Hon. John Dawkins, who is the Acting President at the moment, interjects from the Chair—and I know that is absolutely out of order—

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): Out of order, terribly out of order!

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: —to say that, on average, 40 meetings a year. I am sad to say that that is not the case; and, in fact, when I was on the ERD Committee the Hon. Lyn Breuer the member for Giles was Chair and she made a statement early in the piece that she came from Whyalla and that we would be sitting only when she was in Adelaide and not in non-sitting weeks.

I think that the ERD Committee has been somewhat dumbed down and silenced. I know that the Hon. Mark Parnell expressed his frustrations after the last election when, of course, the government members had a majority. So I was somewhat surprised that was his first—

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola: He's on it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I know that he is on it, but he does not have the numbers. Prior to the 2010 election, there were occasions when the government did not have the numbers. However, since the 2010 election the government has the numbers. So I was surprised that he referred it to the ERD Committee for the reasons, as the Hon. Carmel Zollo gave, that the ERD Committee looked at the DPA and did not object to it. I know that certainly some members of the committee did but, in the end, the committee numbers prevailed, and—

The Hon. Carmel Zollo: It's called democracy.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: And the Hon. Carmel Zollo interjects to say that it is called democracy, and I guess you could call it some form of democracy. I was a bit concerned because my view of that committee was that there would be an opportunity possibly to call the witnesses in, although my colleague the Hon. Michelle Lensink has informed me with respect to the population inquiry that the Chair, Gay Thompson, basically refused to invite anyone to make some oral submissions. They were able to make written submissions, but the population inquiry was somewhat dumbed down by the process.

The types of hearings and witnesses you would normally expect to have in were not allowed to come in. So I was surprised the Hon. Mark Parnell chose that avenue, and why I moved last week to refer the issues of the probity checks, which I think are at the core of the issue here as we have a firm of property consultants working for the developers and, on the other hand, working for the government. I think they declared their conflict. That seems to be at the root of this whole issue.

The Hon. Mark Parnell said that he has had a conga line of people within the development industry saying, 'This is not right.' I would not say that I have had a conga line—depends how long your conga is, I suppose—

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola: How long's a conga?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Exactly—who knows? How long is a piece of string?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): I believe we should get back—

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I know we should get back to the topic. I have had a number of people say to me that this really has not been well handled by the government. I was recently in Western Australia talking to some officials in the planning sector there and they said it just would not happen in WA, that you would have a firm of consultants working for the developers and that same firm being employed by the government, irrespective of whether they were the only ones in town or the best placed people. It simply would not happen.

That is why the opposition thought that the best way to deal with this was to refer it to the Ombudsman. We met with the Ombudsman, as I indicated last week when I spoke to the motion to refer it to the Ombudsman, and he has clear guidelines to look into the main issue in contention. There are a whole lot of other issues that float around the side as to land use, infrastructure and all those issues that have been covered by other speakers (and I certainly covered it last week when I spoke against the Hon. Mark Parnell's motion to call on the government to reverse the rezoning).

I know the Hon. Mark Parnell, with regard to our having legal advice, says 'So what!' In his view it would not cost anything; in our view it will. It is the government's view that it would if you overturned or reversed the rezoning, so we are not prepared to even entertain that, because our state is almost on the brink of bankruptcy.

I heard the senior economist from Westpac, Mr Bill Evans, at a breakfast last Friday and he said, 'We are definitely in recession and jobs growth is at a 20-year low, at zero.' So, when you start looking at some of those statistics, this state cannot afford any more kicks in the guts or hiccups in its economy, and certainly to reverse a rezoning potentially exposes our state to maybe as much as $500 million in compensation—simply something we could not afford. We did not agree with that, so our view was that the best place to deal with this was with the Ombudsman. We indicated via press release in more ways than one that we would not support this. He has now amended it to a select committee.

The Hon. M. Parnell: But now you can support it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: And you did say to me a few weeks ago, 'I could have gone to a select committee, but I think I'll stay with you.'

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. John Gazzola's right in that normally these things should be tabled and we should take time to consider them. You are rolling your eyes in your head, and you did email us last week and we will deal with it.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): I remind the honourable member that I am not rolling my eyes in my head.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: No, but he was. We are now faced with the prospect of a select committee. The Hon. Gerry Kandelaars and I are on the forestry select committee, which only met two days ago. The Hon. John Gazzola and the Hon. Jing Lee could not make it because it conflicted with Social Development. The Hon. Carmel Zollo made the comment that we now have 11 select committees, some of which rarely meet. I am reminded of one—I think it is the Lefevre Peninsula one which the Hon. Mark Parnell moved: it was on the Notice Paper for 12 months before he called it to a vote. It is important because Port Adelaide is the redevelopment of the port. We have met twice since it was established in late November/December. I would have liked to have met much more regularly during the lead-up to the by-election to try to expose some of the issues in Port Adelaide, but sadly we could not do that.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Mark Parnell and the Hon. John Gazzola talk about being independent: I would be absolutely independent because we did not have an interest in it. Now that you have reminded me of by-election candidates and preferences, I will come back to that in a minute, but what we see is a select committee that I supported. I took it to our party room and our caucus early in the piece and said, 'I think that the Lefevre Peninsula is an important part of the state, and it would be good to have a look at that particular issue.' Of course, the simple problem is that we have 11 committees. This would be No. 12, and I think the Hon. Robert Brokenshire has one on the Notice Paper that he wants to move, so it could be 13.

We simply do not have the resources. We have the hardworking table staff as secretaries but we cannot get researchers, we cannot get quorums, and we are just overloading ourselves with select committees. I reiterate: I think the best place for this inquiry—the narrow part of the inquiry that we think is important—is to be referred to the Ombudsman. Let us take all the politics out of it; the Ombudsman's office is well resourced, so let us have the Ombudsman look into the issue.

I was reminded by the interjections of the Hon. Mark Parnell and the Hon. John Gazzola about by-elections, candidates and preferences, and I would to rebut the comments made by the Hon. Mark Parnell last week. I commented on the Greens' preferences to the Labor Party, and the Hon. Mr Parnell raised the issue that we did not run a candidate in Port Adelaide, so we are just sooks. Mr Parnell also stated that, in Victoria, the Liberal Party preferenced Labor, and—

The Hon. M. Parnell: 88 seats.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: He says it was 88 seats, but he misses the point: they did not preference Labor to get them elected. I know they did a deal to stop your friends in Victoria winning seats, and I can understand why you are upset and disappointed with that, but the Liberal Party did not preference Labor to put them into government. The difference in this state is that your party made the choice to preference the Labor Party in Bright, Hartley, Mawson, Mitchell and Newland.

You made the conscious decision that, if you were to preference the Labor Party in those seats, they would win the seats—you hoped they would win the seats, and they would form government. Whereas, the Victorian Liberal Party made a decision—and I know you are disappointed, and from the Greens'—

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): The honourable member should direct his comments through the chair.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I am sorry, Mr Acting President. I know the Greens are disappointed, and they probably have every right to be disappointed, but at the end of the day, that preference decision by the Liberal Party was not made to elect the Labor Party. The decision by the Greens to preference Susan Close in Port Adelaide was made to guarantee her election. They did not have to run a candidate; there was no Legislative Council election, they were never going to win the seat, so a decision was made to run purely to benefit somebody.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): I think we ought to return to the essence of the motion.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We could return, Mr Acting President. I just make the point that, in the end, we the opposition, with the support, I hope, of the crossbenchers, will refer this to the Ombudsman, because it takes the politics out of it. The Greens are going to say that we are sooks and that we should not be whingeing about losing the election; we are going to continue to say they should not have preferenced Labor, that they knew what they were going to get and what would happen, because it was clearly spelled out before the election.

The Mount Barker DPA was not in place at the time but we would have changed it. We wanted modest growth within the existing town boundaries, and we would consult and work with the community. The government had another plan. A decision was made by the Greens to preference Labor to guarantee their election. In addition, the Greens preferenced the Hon. Paul Holloway, the Hon. Bernard Finnigan, the Hon. Gail Gago and the Hon. John Gazzola in the Legislative Council. The then minister for urban planning (Hon. Paul Holloway) was the very minister the Hon. Mark Parnell takes issue with, and yet he was the member his party chose to preference.

If we are not careful, this will be a continuous political arm wrestle. If it goes to the ERD Committee, it will be dealt with by the numbers there. I also make the point that, if it goes to a select committee, I am yet to see, in the 10 years that I have been a member in this parliament, any select committee recommendation that was negative towards the government be adopted by the government. We table them here, we speak to them and, at the end of the day, they go nowhere.

I know the Hon. Mark Parnell will say that this is about changing and improving the planning system. About 12 months ago, Mr Acting President, I released a discussion paper on reforms for planning. I did it broadly and it was well-covered in the media.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): Order! There is too much conversation in the chamber.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I saw the Hon Mark Parnell the next day and, in fact, we had sequential press conferences about the planning discussion paper. Amid the banter in the corridor afterwards, I asked, 'Why don't you put in a submission? There is a fair chance that either the Labor Party or Liberal Party will be the next party to form government—it is unlikely to be the Greens—so here is your chance; you have a shadow minister saying we want to engage the community and have a discussion about how we can improve the system.' Submissions have closed but I would probably still be quite happy to receive a submission from the Greens if they felt so inclined as to participate in a policy development of an opposition party.

We have been quite open and transparent. We would like to change the system. We think it is broken. We would like the Ombudsman to have a look at if the system was broken in relation to the probity checks and balances. The Ombudsman would report to parliament and that would be tabled in parliament, and there is a fair expectation that if the Ombudsman came up with recommendations (not far off the election) then I suspect that if the government was not prepared to adopt those recommendations you would see an opposition—

The Hon. A. Bressington: He will bury it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Ann Bressington says he will bury it. I hope he does not bury it. He did not tell me today that he would bury it; he seemed quite interested in an inquiry. In the end, we think an inquiry by the Ombudsman is a better way to do it, it takes the politics out of it, and then hopefully his office would come back with a final report, table it, and there would be some recommendations for the government, the opposition and all minor parties and Independents to consider. We think that is a far better process. Given that we already have 11 select committees, so this would be 12, we cannot—

The Hon. A. Bressington interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Exactly. I was talking to the messenger and I said, 'Maybe we should cap it at 10. Maybe we should say that we can't establish any more, 10 is the maximum we can handle and until we finish and discharge one we won't have any more.' I think that might put a bit of a discipline on all of us on a select committee to think: 'Actually, we have a great issue. We still have 10 on the books, so we have to discharge one so we can get the next inquiry out.' That may be a positive that comes out of all of this. I am not sure whether the Hon. Mark Parnell has received a letter from the Mount Baker council, but I have a letter from the mayor of the Mount Barker council which arrived just today. It states:

Dear David

I am writing to advise that the District Council of Mount Barker passed the following resolution unanimously at its council meeting held Monday 3 April 2012:

Moved Councillor Bettcher that Council support the notice of motion by the Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House and the Mayor write, as soon as possible, on behalf of all Elected Members, a letter to all members of State Parliament to obtain support for the Hon David Ridgway's move to have the Ombudsman commence a well resourced non-political probe into the selection of Connor Holmes for the Growth Investigations Report and other related aspects as stated in the suggested terms of reference.

So, the Mount Barker council, being concerned with what the government has imposed on it, has, at its latest meeting on Monday night, resolved to write to all members of parliament to obtain support for what we are trying to do: refer it to the Ombudsman. With those few words, I indicate that the opposition will not be supporting the Hon. Mark Parnell's motion.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (21:33): I would like to thank my colleague the Hon. Tammy Franks for her contribution and for the very sensible amendment she moved to this motion. I thank the Hon. Carmel Zollo and the Hon. David Ridgway. The first thing I would say about the Hon. Carmel Zollo's contribution is that, clearly, she believes the Liberal Party are far smarter than they are. She envisaged that a deal had been struck and was a little bit down in the dumps in her contribution, but the Liberal Party never fail to surprise even the Hon. Carmel Zollo. It was no surprise that the Labor Party did not support this motion. It was never going to support this motion, whether it was a select committee or a parliamentary committee, and I look forward to it not supporting an inquiry by the Ombudsman as well. It is just par for the course.

In response to the Hon. David Ridgway's contribution, I have a few observations about the attempts that the Greens have made to try to get as much support as possible from all in this place to a genuine inquiry.

The first thing that I did was put it to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee at its second to last meeting that we call in relevant government officials to ask them about these issues, in particular the conflict of interest issues that were identified in the freedom of information documents that I obtained. As would surprise no-one, the government majority on that committee declined to hear from the government.

I could have just left it at that and said that the Hon. David Ridgway seems to be satisfied that that is a democratic process. If the Labor majority members on that committee say they do not want to hear any witnesses, I could have just left it at that. I thought, no. I gave the committee the opportunity voluntarily to have a very brief inquiry—it probably would only have been one day—but they declined that opportunity. So I thought I would offer the Legislative Council the opportunity to refer the matter.

The reason I originally chose the ERD Committee was because that is the committee with statutory responsibility for planning. It has looked at this issue previously, but only in relation to the merits of the rezoning. It did not look at the process because that is not part of its statutory role when a development plan amendment is referred to it. Clearly, despite the numbers being evenly split, opposing the Mount Barker rezoning, the government used the casting vote of the chair to make sure that the rezoning was not rejected.

I should say that that would surprise no-one because since 1994 when this system came into operation (18 years), this parliament has never rejected a rezoning at the instigation of the Environment, Resources and Development Committee. It has never happened. The Hon. David Ridgway often refers to things like false hope. The biggest false hope I think that is held out to the people of South Australia is the provision of the Development Act under the heading 'Parliamentary scrutiny' which has people thinking that a bad rezoning will in fact be thrown out by parliament.

Members have been interjecting, which was most unruly, to suggest that we have come close a few times. Yes, it has come close. We almost got the rezoning at Glenside Hospital thrown out. One of the members of the committee had a change of heart at the last minute, but I stand by what I said: since 1994 when this system came in, I am not aware of any rezoning thrown out using that parliamentary scrutiny process. I would love to be corrected because I have been saying it for a few years and no-one has given me an example yet.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Members on both my right and left are interjecting with technicalities. I will stand by my point that the parliament has never thrown out a rezoning. Anyway, the Hon. David Ridgway then came out on that last Wednesday of sitting with a media release under the heading 'Libs call in Ombudsman over Mt Barker.' The Hon. David Ridgway said in parliament that it was in response to my motion calling for an ERD inquiry. In his release, the Hon. David Ridgway says:

I hope that South Australians will now get a proper, well-resourced, non-political probe into selecting Connor Holmes to prepare the Growth Investigation Areas Report. South Australians want answers. The Greens, in contrast, want the issue to go to a Labor-dominated parliamentary committee, and we've all seen how Labor gets the results it wants when it has the numbers on parliamentary committees.

So, the main objection the Liberals have was that it was a Labor-dominated committee. My main concern is that the people of Mount Barker—and I think they deserve answers to the legitimate questions they have been asking. If I cannot get the Liberals on side referring it to the standing committee of this parliament with statutory responsibility for planning, then the next option is to go for a select committee.

As the Hon. David Ridgway said, it was not my first option. I am aware that there is a number of select committees and people here do not want to work harder than the work provided by 11 committees. Having moved it to try to satisfy the Liberals' concerns that it was a Labor-dominated committee, I said let's put it to a select committee and we can make sure that the Labor Party will not control this select committee. We will make sure that it is not a government dominated committee. This is the Liberal Party. When you respond to their concerns in a spirit of cooperation they find another lame excuse to deny the people of Mount Barker the scrutiny that this project deserves.

I might just reflect briefly on the proposed Ombudsman's inquiry, and I will tell the Hon. David Ridgway that I will support that. I will support the Ombudsman's narrow inquiry into the very narrow term of reference that the Hon. David Ridgway put forward, which is simply to do with the procurement process followed in one particular contract let to one particular contractor. Yes, let's do that, but when you look at the Ombudsman's legislation and you see how the Ombudsman operates, it is only an inquiry in relation to administrative acts. The Ombudsman inquires in private, and in fact if we look at the Ombudsman Act section 18, subsection (2), 'every investigation under this act must be conducted in private'.

So the first problem we have with the Ombudsman having been the sole investigation is that the opportunity for people, members of the community, to actually hear firsthand from the government how they explain the process they went through has gone in this process. The Ombudsman, under the terms of reference proffered by the leader of the opposition, will not look at the most fundamental question in this whole sorry exercise, which is why it is appropriate for the government to outsource to private contractors who have conflicts of interest with their private clients the most important task facing the planning system, that is the long-term strategic planning of our cities, our towns, our countrysides and our suburbs. Why on earth are they doing that?

The Ombudsman will look at whether proper procurement policies were followed. Were boxes ticked, were forms filled out properly? The Ombudsman will not investigate that fundamental question about whether this is the proper way to proceed with the long-term planning of our state. Whilst we can support, when it comes to a vote eventually, the Ombudsman having a look at that narrow part of this equation, if you look at the terms of reference that I have put forward they are far broader than simply the contract for the growth investigation areas report. The terms of reference for the inquiry that the Greens are putting forward include issues such as the adequacy of infrastructure planning and funding. There is a whole range of issues much broader than simply that one contract.

That is why I think it is consistent. We will support that narrow inquiry by the ombudsman, but I also expect this parliament to see the bigger picture and to see that a proper inquiry is warranted into Mount Barker. The Hon. David Ridgway says that he wants to take the politics out of it. Well, to a certain extent he has already taken the politics out of it, because his party has abandoned the people of Mount Barker. They are already out of it; they are already out of Mount Barker. He took the politics out of it when they refused to stand up for the people of Mount Barker in a timeframe when it was possible to do something about it.

The later it gets, the harder it is to do anything about it. We have been trying as hard as we can on the part of the Greens over the last several years to try to deal with this. The Hon. David Ridgway is embarrassed, his party is embarrassed, he wants the whole thing to go away. He certainly does not want members of parliament to have to directly grill bureaucrats or directly grill the people involved. He would much rather it be a very simple exercise. He has washed his hands of it; send it to the Ombudsman.

We may or may not get an inquiry. If the report does come back to us it is very likely to say that bureaucratic boxes were ticked, but it will not have addressed the most important issue, which is why the government proceeded as it did to undermine its own decision of 2005-06, outsource the job of planning to private consultants, and ride roughshod over the local community, the people of Mount Barker. It is a shameful exercise and I think it is equally shameful that the opposition is not prepared to bat for their constituents, who voted for them in the House of Assembly.

I am a realist—I can see the numbers in the chamber tonight. I can see that this important inquiry is not going to get up, and the reason it will not get up is because the Liberal Party has squibbed it again on Mount Barker.

Amendments negatived.

Motion negatived.

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