Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-10-14 Daily Xml

Contents

South-East Drainage System

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (15:19): Supplementary: given that the government did not adhere to all of the recommendations from the community consultation that he referred to in relation to the citizens' jury here in Adelaide by the government not removing the car park tax, what confidence do we have that you will listen to all of the recommendations from this community consultation?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:20): There was never an expectation that the government would actually swallow completely all the recommendations that were put up.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: You said you were going to take them all.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I said I would respond to them all. The Hon. Mr Ridgway has just shown clearly once again that he does not take the time to listen to the answers that ministers in this place give to the Liberal opposition. But it is important to understand that in responding to the previous citizen's panel, which I talked about earlier, the government gave reasons back to those people as to why some of their recommendations would not be supported, so it was not as if we were ignoring them.

We said, 'Thank you very much for this very good work that you have put up. We will accept these recommendations because they are excellent. These others we will not be able to accept, but these are the reasons why,' and when that explanation was made to the panel they understood the government's position because we respected their viewpoint and we gave them a respectful answer in response.