3 November 2008

I'm the only one who bosses planning in this town - Stanhope

| johnboy
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The ABC has a classic piece of Jon Stanhope mystery theatre with the angry man huffing and puffing about the dire consequences of our elected assembly having any say in his planning administration.

Particularly he wants his beloved datacentre/powerstation to be built on the edge of Tuggeranong and nowhere else.

Suddenly his planning process is sacrosanct, never mind the number of call ins and “earmarks” his own ministers have used to intervene in the past.

    “Mr Stanhope says the project does not need Assembly approval to go ahead.

    “The Assembly has no role in the approval of development applications,” he said.

    “If they did it would be mayhem … It would be chaos, nothing would ever be approved or things would be approved that shouldn’t be approved, and things that have a right to be approved wouldn’t be approved.””

Can’t wait to see what he has to say after the disallowance motion passes. A true leader in the Westminster tradition would be resigning.

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I’m hoping it isn’t all that bad. Maybe there’s some secret deal we don’t know about that will make it a better place for all.

We’ll ignore, for this argument, that the data centre probably won’t move.

It seems to me, as I have written elsewhere, that the deal between the Greens and Labor gives the ALP Government on the cheap. Excluding relocation of the data centre from the Agreement shows the Greens were either naive or have sold out already. think the latter is likely.

The rest of the agreement is crap. An extra 2.5 million a year for public housing. Wow.
A goal for green house reductions. Wow. I am staggered by the sellout the deal is. And all this before the Assembly even meets. A few weeks of ALP duchessing and the Greens will be braying “four legs good two legs better”.

Make a deal with Stanhope Labor – get burned.

Well, I certainly hope they do better next time around. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

It’s tempting to join the Greens just so I can bombard them with my displeasure avery time Sonic puts on one of his turns.

Yes Granny, more or less – subject to review as per John’s comments.

The first four months will be interesting. By the time of the review, Stanhope might have displayed his true colours and the Greens will have settled into their first assembly. Maybe their agreement to go with Stanhope was a time-buying exercise?

It’s gonna be a fun four months 🙂

Didn’t they waive all their rights to … um … just about everything?

Next agreement review is in four months.

How long before the Greens get jack of him and demand his replacement as a condition for their support of the government?

Thankyou Motorist Party!!

*chuckle*

Ahhh yes, everything changes, and everything stays the same. Anyone surprised?

Vic Bitterman5:11 pm 03 Nov 08

Fkn hell, it’s going to be a long 4 years with Mr Arrogance at the helm….

housebound said :

Stanhope can’t use call-in powers in a DA, only the planning minister can do that. If the final approval of the DA is subject to an EIS, then the minister has the discretion to table the final EIS in the Assembly, or could just approve it outright withouit tabling. The short story is: you get Labor, you get a data centre wherever Labor wants it. The Greens were kidding themselves if they thought Labor would change that one.

The only way to change it would be to change the new Planning and Development Act to force all EIS’s to be tabled in the Assembly for approval. Since the DA for the data centre was lodged under the old Planning Act, it is quite possible that even doing that wouldn’t help.

I’m not sure a DA approval is a disallowable instrument – so a disallowance motion might have no effect.

Anyway, classic Stanhope continues: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/03/2408461.htm

wait, he will be planning minister now. and AG and any other ministery that takes his fancy.

and when will he learn to separate professional from personal?

when we finally see the back of him.

Stanhope can’t use call-in powers in a DA, only the planning minister can do that. If the final approval of the DA is subject to an EIS, then the minister has the discretion to table the final EIS in the Assembly, or could just approve it outright withouit tabling. The short story is: you get Labor, you get a data centre wherever Labor wants it. The Greens were kidding themselves if they thought Labor would change that one.

The only way to change it would be to change the new Planning and Development Act to force all EIS’s to be tabled in the Assembly for approval. Since the DA for the data centre was lodged under the old Planning Act, it is quite possible that even doing that wouldn’t help.

I’m not sure a DA approval is a disallowable instrument – so a disallowance motion might have no effect.

Anyway, classic Stanhope continues: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/03/2408461.htm

Assembly – no….Ministers – yes?

Is this what he is getting at – it’s not decision by consenus of the assembly – but by the Minister only?

Didn’t Stanhopeless learn anything from the election. The people of Canberra gave him a kicking and took away his majority government. Mr Stanhopeless use this term to listen to the people before acting unilaterally.

classic Stanhope. if he said this before the election, I bet the swing aganist Labor would have been greater.

This clear the deck for the his union mates grabbing the car-park in Woden then.

GottaLoveCanberra10:16 am 03 Nov 08

Why doesn’t he slit his own throat and save us all the trouble of his arrogance and hypocrisy.

Christ, four more years of this crap from Mr Bighead………………

Why doesn’t he build his data centre in Cyprus?

As I noted in another thread a Disallowance motion from the Assembly will squash the data centre project. There’s no need for a no confidence motion – as JB notes a minister who took on the issue should do the decent thing and resign once the Disallowance passed.

There’s quite a history of Disallowance motions on significant projects, so Stanhope really is talking tripe. While he stared down the greens on supporting him as Chief Minister as he knew they’d never support the Libs, on this occasion any brinkmanship will surely misfire.

What did stanhope’s adviser david dawes apologise for again? Misleading the assembly under oath? Didn’t he select this block of land in order to retain the industrial land for future sale?

Looks like govt involvement in the site selection to me.

That is a point – Stanhope might use the “call in” powers to approve this project. That would be a real test of whether the Greens were an extension of the ALP, or were going to play a sincere role from the crossbench. The independent response would be t move no confidence (if not in the govt, then at least in Stanhope).

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