Page 1667 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 June 2021
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MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (10.07): I am pleased to hear Minister Gentleman’s ministerial statement on district planning. and I thank the directorate for its hard work on this planning review. Our city does continue to grow, and we have the challenge of accommodating our growing population with affordable housing that is close to public transport, health services, schools and community facilities without drastically expanding our urban footprint. We need to make sure we do not keep sprawling and that we maintain our status as the bush capital.
This planning review is a unique opportunity to provide inputs into the way we want our city to be planned. It is great to learn that our planning system is being benchmarked against other planning systems and that feedback from the community over the years is being listened to. As elements such as district planning are being considered, this is an important time to not only disseminate information but to welcome and listen to the views of community. Because district planning is not yet a feature of our planning system, it is all the more important that extra efforts are made to ensure community consultation is done in the right way—talking to the broader community but also specialist community organisations who, by virtue of their interest in their local community—the environment, planning and transport—have so much to contribute to our ACT planning.
As I mentioned in my question to Minister Gentleman yesterday, this is a great opportunity to walk the community through this process, and good informed consultation is required. I was really happy to hear that we are moving in that direction and that we are making a lot of changes. If there is overwhelming interest in community consultations on district planning, I really look forward to seeing some reports so that we can all understand exactly what our community has said. We do not get this opportunity very often, and it is really important that people have their say and that they get a chance to listen to each other and hear what everybody is saying as well. We want to continue to build our Canberra community by consulting with them on these issues that impact them now and in future. I am really looking forward to hearing more about the planning review as it continues to roll out.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Transport—Molonglo Valley
Ministerial statement
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for Skills, Minister for Transport and City Services and Special Minister of State) (10.09): I am pleased to take this opportunity to update the Assembly on the transport investments the ACT government is making in the Molonglo Valley. The Molonglo Valley’s transport connections have been the subject of substantial preparation and planning now for well over a decade. This planning has involved the establishment of strategic transport corridors, as committed to in the ACT government’s planning strategy. These corridors connect the residents of new suburbs to town centres and regions where they will work, go to school and engage with the local community.
When we build roads, we are establishing the backbone upon which we deliver all forms of transport for Canberrans. Our roads connect our new suburbs to the rest of
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