Government claims debating the BTS issue in Parliament ‘a waste of their time’

The Minister’s decision to rezone the BTS and allow the development to proceed was ‘debated’ in the Upper House of State Parliament earlier this week. While Labor and Greens members took the disallowance motion seriously, it is clear that Government members treated the whole issue as an annoyance, and us – their constituents – with contempt. The Minister didn’t even bother to speak on the issue, his comments restricted to interjecting when other members were speaking and encouraging Liberal members to turn the debate into a farce. See full transcript below (if you can bear seeing how appalling the level of ‘debate’ is in our State Parliament). In summary, Opposition Spokesman for Planning, Brian Tee moved a motion to disallow the Ministers decision, and this was supported by Greg Barber (Greens), Jenny Mikakos (Labor) and Nasi Elasmar (Labor). Naturally the government won the vote at the end of the ‘debate’ given they have more members in the Upper House.

However before voting, Government members ridiculed Labor members for bringing this matter before Parliament, claiming that such a tedious issue should be dealt with at Council or VCAT (didn’t they know it already had been rejected by Council, and the Minister stopped it from going before VCAT?) and that they had more important things to be debating. They also claimed that it was fully acceptable for residents living near proposed Wind Turbines to have power of veto if they lived within 2km of such a facility, but that residents living in Melbourne’s inner north had no such rights when it came to electricity terminals and high voltage transmission lines and that we were raising this as a frivolous issue to waste their time – and that Labor members were ‘scaremongering’. Of greatest concern is the number of times that Government members claimed the Regulatory Test Process had thoroughly investigated the issue and shown that there was a ‘net benefit’ from siting the new terminal at the BTS. The Reg Test shows no such thing – merely that it is the most cost effective option (which remains debatable) when you don’t take into consideration any environmental, health, safety or amenity issues.

This ‘debate’ shows just how much contempt the Minister and his colleagues have for local residents and Moreland Council – and only reaffirms our resolve to stop this bad decision being implemented.
Chris Black

Read the first debate here - http://bit.ly/xwnchT

Debate adjourned and then resumed here - http://bit.ly/zlzg96