Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In building a so-called big Australia, he spoke instead of a national strategic plan—national planning for our major cities to keep them, for example, developing in an environmentally friendly way—and, in keeping with this national government intervention in its nationally consistent strategic plan, he proposed to tie infrastructure funding to the states with compliance with this nationally consistent plan. The Prime Minister, tripping over himself in his eagerness to deliver the spin over the substance, and in delivering speed over substance, forgot to check and made mistakes. He forgot to check the detail of his Building the Education Revolution plan and the detail of his National Broadband Network plan under Minister Conroy.

In talking about a national strategic plan for building cities under this federal government, he forgot that in his government’s haste to roll out the Building the Education Revolution his government is presiding over state Labor governments creating nationally inconsistent rules to help the Building the Education Revolution happen in a hurry—and exempt from local planning laws. For example, in my state of South Australia—and yours, Mr Deputy President—Pulteney Grammar School demolished a bluestone building built in 1875 without having to go through the normal planning processes to do so. It did this to make way for the Prime Minister’s Building the Education Revolution. Trees of significance have gone. How is that environmentally friendly? How is that consistent with any national strategic plan and with national BER funding?

In Tasmania, our Senate Select Committee on National Broadband Network heard that in its haste to roll out the NBN, this federal Labor government is proposing to allow the state Labor government to exempt certain infrastructure building from local planning laws. This is to facilitate the hurried rolling out of the National Broadband Network in Tasmania. Where is the nationally consistent plan? How is it environmentally friendly to do that in a way that allows construction for the National Broadband Network to be 70 per cent aerial cables—