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  4. 5 June 2007

Business of the House

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About this Item
SpeakersHale Ms Sylvia; President; Kelly The Hon Tony; Robertson The Hon Christine; Khan The Hon Trevor; Brown The Hon Robert; Nile Reverend the Hon Fred; Kaye Dr John
BusinessBusiness of the House, Division, Suspension of Orders, Motion

      BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Page: 686

      Suspension of Standing and Sessional Orders: Order of Business

      Ms SYLVIA HALE [2.49 p.m.]: I move:
      That standing and sessional orders be suspended to allow a motion to be moved forthwith that Private Members' Business item No. 38 outside the Order of Precedence, relating to an order for papers regarding Killalea State Park, be called on forthwith.
      This motion, if passed, will require the production of all documents concerning the agreement to lease three parcels of land in Killalea State Park—the 250-hectare pristine coastal reserve on eight kilometres of coastline and surfing beaches between Shellharbour and Kiama. The matter is urgent because no details of the agreement to lease have been made public. Members of the Killalea State Park Trust were sworn to secrecy, and even the representatives of Shellharbour and Kiama councils on the trust were forbidden to inform their councils of the details of the 52-year agreement to lease.

      The matter is urgent because it was reported in yesterday's Illawarra Mercury that joint venture developers, led by the multinational funds management and infrastructure company Babcock and Brown, have already paid $600,000 to the Killalea State Park Trust, but there was no public information available as to what that payment was for and what guarantees were given to the developers in return. The only thing that is presently clear about the agreement to lease is that a private developer is being permitted to exploit a State park for profit. The matter is urgent because, while there has been no public consultation whatsoever about the proposal, we know from yesterday's Illawarra Mercury article that the developer has prepared—
      The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Point of order: At this stage the member must confine her remarks to matters of urgency. It is not good enough that the member has a one-minute spray about the substantive motion, that she then says, "And this matter is urgent because", and that she then goes on to talk about the substantive matter. The member has told us repeatedly that she considers the matter to be urgent but she has not told us why it is urgent. I ask you to direct the member to explain to the House why the matter is urgent and not to debate the substantive debate.
      The PRESIDENT: Order! When arguing that a matter should be given some priority a member must establish why the matter is of sufficient urgency to warrant the suspension of standing orders to allow it to be debated. The case is not made out by a member simply repeating the words, "This matter is urgent because". I uphold the point of order and ask the member to continue in light of my ruling.

      Ms SYLVIA HALE: This matter is urgent because the development of Killalea State Park is progressing rapidly but without public scrutiny. If the debacle of the Cross City Tunnel has shown us anything, it is that dealings between the Government and the private sector involving the exploitation of a public resource for private profit should be completely transparent and subject to detailed scrutiny.
      The Hon. Greg Donnelly: Point of order: I raise the same point of order raised by the Hon. Amanda Fazio. No sooner had you made your ruling than the member immediately commenced a diatribe of ideology in an attempt to attack the Government. As you have ruled, Mr President, the member must confine her comments to establishing the urgency of the matter.
      The PRESIDENT: Order! I again uphold the point of order and ask the member to continue in light of that ruling.

      Ms SYLVIA HALE: The matter is urgent because of the degree of public consternation that surrounds this development, which is provoked by the secrecy surrounding the negotiations that have taken place and the agreement to lease that has been entered into. In other instances, such as the Cross City Tunnel, where there has not been transparency and openness at the very beginning of negotiations, it is clear that public interest is the loser. The reason for urgency in this case is that the documents that are fundamental to what is happening at Killalea State Park must be made available as soon as possible rather than kept in obscurity and away from the public. We can only know what is happening if those documents are made available now so that everyone has the benefit of being able to form a considered opinion on the matter.
      The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Lands, Minister for Rural Affairs, Minister for Regional Development, and Vice-President of the Executive Council) [2.54 p.m.]: This matter is not urgent. As I explained to Ms Sylvia Hale a few hours ago, nothing will be happening in Killalea State Park for quite some time. There are 37 other motions listed before this matter on the Notice Paper . Again the Greens are trying to jump the queue, as they always do for political purposes. The only reason the Greens consider this matter to be urgent is that they want a campaign. There are not enough trees being knocked down to cause the Greens to campaign, so they are looking for something else to campaign about.
      As I advised the Greens at a recent briefing, all that has happened at Killalea is that a proponent has been selected to go away and put together a proposal and a development application for the community and the council and to carry out a public consultation process. My guess is that the final proposal will be produced towards the end of this year, at the very least. If this motion were debated in September, October or November, nothing would still have taken place with regard to Killalea, except perhaps for some further public consultation. The matter is definitely not urgent; there are more urgent matters on the Notice Paper that can and should be dealt with. Some calls for documents cost the Government in the order of $200,000—a complete waste of public money. This motion calls on some 20 government departments, ministries and local government bodies to research their files to look for relevant papers. That constitutes a huge cost to the Government. But I concede that is an argument for the substantive motion, not for urgency.
      The Hon. TREVOR KHAN [2.56 p.m.]: The Opposition supports this motion, a decision about which I am most pleased given that 30-odd years ago I learned to dive in that pristine region of the South Coast.
      The Hon. Christine Robertson: It would not have been pristine if you were diving in it!
      The Hon. TREVOR KHAN: I had a wash before I dived! I submit that if one considers the cogent arguments put forward by Ms Sylvia Hale, one would have to support her motion.
      The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [2.57 p.m.]: I do not believe that this matter is urgent, given that the documents the Greens are seeking may or may not be included among those that local councils can now make available to the public. The only matter of urgency perhaps is the composition of the trust membership. Perhaps an indigenous person should be placed on the trust—yesterday!
      Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [2.57 p.m.]: As has been said in previous discussions about the production of documents pursuant to Standing Order 52, in any request members should be more objective and very precise about the documents to be produced. The motion requests many Ministers and departments to search their records and files—the Minister for Lands, the Department of Lands, the Premier, the Office of the Premier, the Treasurer, the New South Wales Treasury, the Minister for Natural Resources, the Department of Natural Resources, the Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water, the Department of Environment, including the Environmental Protection Authority, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Minister for Planning, the Department of Planning, the Minister for Tourism, the Department of Tourism, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Commerce.
      We know that this matter is in its preliminary stage; the process has not yet begun. The proponent will make a development application to the council in due course and the council will be obliged then to consult the public. At that point people will have a clear idea of what is proposed. At this stage that is not clear. I have been advised that whatever documents are available are with Shellharbour City Council and that local residents can seek copies of the documents there. I do not believe at this stage there is any urgency unless, as has been suggested, it is for the Greens' political purposes.

      Dr JOHN KAYE [2.59 p.m.]: An advertisement that appeared on Good Friday 6 April in the Illawarra Mercury stated:
      It is notified that the Minister for Lands intends to give consent in accordance with section 102 (4) (a) of the Crown Lands Act 1989 to the grant of a lease and to the grant of a class of leases, the particulars of which are set out in schedule 1 by the Killalea State Park Trust.
      Despite the Minister's comments during the briefing this afternoon this matter is proceeding apace. If everything is not brought out into the public domain we run the risk of losing a substantial section of irreplaceable coastal land. To just sit back and do nothing is not good enough because we will reach a point where the position is irreversible. If the documents are not brought into the public domain now to allow informed public debate on the matter, we run the risk that in six months time the lease will have been granted and we will be so far down the track that it will be too late, the development application will have to go ahead, and we will have an irreversible loss of irreplaceable coastal land.

      Question—That the motion be agreed to—put.
      The House divided.
      Ayes, 19
      Mr Ajaka
      Mr Clarke
      Mr Cohen
      Ms Cusack
      Ms Ficarra
      Mr Gallacher
      Miss Gardiner      		Mr Gay
      Ms Hale
      Dr Kaye
      Mr Khan
      Mr Lynn
      Mr Mason-Cox
      Ms Parker      		Mrs Pavey
      Mr Pearce
      Ms Rhiannon

      Tellers,
      Mr Colless
      Mr Harwin

Noes, 22

Mr Brown
Mr Catanzariti
Mr Costa
Mr Della Bosca
Ms Fazio
Ms Griffin
Mr Hatzistergos
Mr Kelly		Mr Macdonald
Reverend Dr Moyes
Reverend Nile
Mr Obeid
Ms Robertson
Mr Roozendaal
Ms Sharpe
Mr Smith		Mr Tsang
Ms Voltz
Mr West
Ms Westwood

Tellers,
Mr Donnelly
Mr Veitch


Question resolved in the negative.
Motion negatived.

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