00:01Madam Deputy President, I rise in relation to a very significant housing
00:05development in my duty electorate of Goulburn and that is the Parkwood
00:09development on the New South Wales ACT border in the Yass Valley Council area.
00:15This development will deliver thousands of new homes and a master-planned
00:19community in a great part of the world. It's an important project for the ACT
00:24and for New South Wales which is why I've been bemused Madam Deputy President,
00:28bemused by media reports of a letter that the Chief Minister of the ACT, Mr Andrew Barr,
00:35has sent to our Premier. According to the media reports Mr Barr told the Premier that and I quote
00:41the ACT government advises that the supply of water via the ACT to any locations within the
00:48Yass Valley Council local government area including those which are the subject of current negotiations
00:54would now be conditional on the ACT New South Wales border being adjusted to incorporate Parkwood
01:01into the Australian Capital Territory. In other words Madam Deputy President, Mr Barr is saying give us
01:07Parkwood or we will turn off the tap. It's an extraordinary ultimatum from the Chief Minister.
01:13So we would do well to remind ourselves of some history here. The whole origin of the ACT lies
01:20in New South Wales ceding its land to the federal government. We even handed over Jarvis Bay so they
01:26could have a seaport. And as my colleague the Treasurer also points out, New South Wales continues to get
01:32screwed on the GST while the ACT benefits from the redistribution of our tax money to a smaller
01:39jurisdiction. And none of this is to mention the fact that the that the electricity the ACT depends on
01:46largely comes from New South Wales. In fact much of it comes from a substation in Yass. None of this,
01:54none of these concessions are remarkable in a federation built on the principles of cooperation and
02:00compromise. But if federalism is to degenerate into public slanging matches and an unhelpful
02:07game of ultimatums, New South Wales can also talk in ultimatums. If the ACT wants to turn the tap off
02:14then we say give us Yarra Lumla or we'll turn the power off. And while you're at it hand back
02:19Jarvis Bay as
02:20well. Now Madam Deputy President, I'm being facetious. I'm not being serious and I don't believe Mr Barr is
02:26either. Behind the scenes officials from both the ACT and New South Wales governments have been working
02:32cooperatively and diligently to progress this project. Officials are working through all the issues,
02:39infrastructure provision, access to utilities, access to education, access to health services,
02:44access to emergency services, who pays for what and how much. The issue of water access is a very
02:51important one. The ACT does need to consider how its water supplies will be able to handle projected
02:58future growth. It needs to balance the needs of other areas in and around the ACT. I accept that.
03:04It may well be that the Parkwood development needs to look elsewhere to secure the water that it needs.
03:09In that regard, I understand that the Yass Valley Council has been looking into all the different options
03:15and it has identified several alternatives that are potentially feasible. But Madam Deputy President,
03:21at the end of the day, we are in a national housing crisis and what matters most is finding a
03:27way to
03:27facilitate good development that provides people with jobs and most of all, a supply, an increase in
03:34the supply of housing. That is precisely what the Yass Valley Council is doing. That is what the New South
03:39Wales government is doing and this is what the ACT government officials are doing. But Madam Deputy
03:45President, I urge the Chief Minister, Mr Barr, to stop carrying on in the media, stop with the
03:52histrionics, stop threatening to send in a crack squad of federal public servants to annex Parkwood.
03:58It is unbecoming of him and it's unbecoming of a senior member of the National Cabinet. He should spend
04:06his energy negotiating with all the parties to resolve the matters sensibly, doing so in a way that is
04:12consistent with his past undertakings so that we can make sure this development progresses constructively.
04:19The people of the Yass Valley are quite happy being New South Wales residents. They don't want their
04:26municipal area handed over to a territory government. Let's keep Yass in the Premier State.
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