Page 2380 - Week 08 - Thursday, 5 August 2021
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MR BARR: to deliver on our election commitments and, Madam Speaker, we remain focused on the number one priority that faces this community and this nation at this time—responding to the pandemic. (Time expired.)
Kippax group centre—flood study
MS CLAY: My question is to the Minister for Planning and Land Management. The expansion of Kippax Fair has been of great interest to the Belconnen community. My recent visit with the Umbagong Landcare Group raised flood risk due to climate change as a particular concern. To what extent does the 2020 Kippax flood report take into consideration data based on the new climate change risk environment and the impacts of flooding we are likely to see over the next hundred years?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Ms Clay for the question. I will go to the Kippax study first and advise that we undertook substantial consultation in developing both the Kippax group centre master plan and the associated Territory Plan variation. The flood study done in 2015 informed the processes for the master plan and the Territory Plan for Kippax as well. We did an updated flood study from 2020, providing additional information to government. So that study took into account the changes we have seen most recently, some, of course, which have been associated with climate change were taken into account as well.
That revised study considered a number of changed conditions, more recent survey and updated parameters and methods as contained in the recently revised national flood guideline, which is the Australian rainfall and runoff guideline 2019. The 2020 flood study found that the land is suitable for development.
MS CLAY: Minister, has a strategic environmental assessment been conducted in the last 10 years to look at flood risks and flood mitigation at Kippax, given our changing climate?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Ms Clay for the supplementary. The flood study that we did is publicly available. All parties seeking to express interest in the site through that recent expression of interest can go and have a look at that, too, and of course members of the public can have a look at that. I am confident that they have taken into account, as I mentioned earlier, changes that are occurring. Indeed, we are looking at this situation in whole-of-government circumstances, too. I can say with ESA that they are looking at changing conditions and are moving to an all-hazards approach when it comes to emergency services responses across the ACT.
We have seen changes in weather. We have seen it personally as citizens across the ACT in the last couple of years. So we will certainly keep an eye on those predictions and ensure that they are well embedded into our future planning.
MR BRADDOCK: Minister, are strategic environmental assessments conducted for all major urban developments to help future proof us in the context of the changing climate?
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