RECEIVE CAMPAIGN UPDATESWater inquiry stagnates
Tuesday, August 5th, 20085 Aug 08
Deb Foskey, ACT Greens MLA, today said that the Planning and Environment Committee’s decision to ditch its Inquiry into water might have been the ACT Government’s plan all along.
“When I proposed in July last year that a Select Committee be set up to inquire into water management and use, the Government referred it to its Standing Committee on Planning and Environment instead,” said Dr Foskey.
“It was clearly afraid that a non-partisan select committee would come out with recommendations it wouldn’t like.”
“I said at the time that the Planning and Environment Committee was too busy to take on this important issue.”
“I wanted a short sharp Inquiry to feed into ACTEW’s Water2Water process - instead, the 16 or so people who made submissions to the Committee and appeared before it must be wondering why they bothered.”
“Today, in the Assembly, the Government even refused me leave to make a statement after Mick Gentleman’s announcement that the Committee had dropped the Inquiry.”
“Clearly, it didn’t want to be reminded of my concerns, a year ago, that a majority government with a majority on committees - as it has on this one - doesn’t lead to the best outcomes for the ACT.”
“Meanwhile, our water use goes unscrutinised - let’s hope that the next Assembly has the numbers and good sense to ensure that we get a non-partisan inquiry into water, because this will continue to be an enormous issue for the ACT,” said Deb Foskey.
