Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Tasmanian Liberal Member for Bass

Wednesday 17th February 2010

Housing Minister must attend public meeting at St Leonards

I call on the Human Services Minister, Lin Thorp, to either attend or send a representative to a public meeting at St Leonards on Saturday morning to discuss the proposal to build 25 units under the National Partnership Agreement.

In regards to other similar developments that have been through the same process no one from Ms Thorp’s office or department was prepared to meet with residents early in the process to discuss their issues so that their concerns were fully understood.

This is not good enough and in one case after the approval process was completed changes were made to reflect local concerns, which whilst welcomed by local residents appears to be a total corruption of the process.

In this case the Minister must be prepared to engage with the community and not arrogantly dismiss their concerns as she has done with other developments in the past.

Furthermore, with the Government in caretaker mode reports that bureaucrats will potentially make the final decision and not the Minister need to be clarified. In my opinion under no circumstances should these projects be rushed through and signed off by anyone other than the responsible Minister and the Treasurer.