Page 1980 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 June 2022
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CSIRO Ginninderra is a 701-hectare piece of land bordered by Fraser, Spence, Evatt, McKellar, Giralang, Crace, Hall and Nicholls. It is a large chunk of land that has been used for the past 60 years by CSIRO for agricultural research. In recent years, CSIRO have said they have engaged the community in research on woodland and native grassland restoration. CSIRO have done some work on what development could look like at this site. They have said they aspire to create a community and urban precinct that showcases world’s best practice in nature conservation, urban design, construction and long-term liveability.
This is commonwealth-owned land. It is not owned by the ACT government, and the ACT government does not control it. Ms Lee’s motion, as originally drafted, asked the Assembly to call on the federal government to release this land for the purpose of housing. It is a good idea, but there are so many important steps that need to take place as part of that.
This land is greenfield land. That means it is a newly released area, and there has been very little development on it before. Greenfield land really matters. It costs a lot to develop because it does not have the necessary infrastructure like roads, sewerage and electricity. Greenfield land is likely to have important environmental and First Nations cultural value. We need to carefully study that and see what is there and make a conscious choice about whether we should protect and develop it, and about which bits we should protect and develop.
Greenfield land needs particularly careful consultation with the community about what they want in their local area. As a local member for Ginninderra, I know that that consultation has not yet happened, and it must happen before anything else is developed here. It is the core part of our planning system, and we must not override the voice of our community and the need for proper consultation.
Greenfield land needs careful thought about how it fits in with our planning and transport system too. In particular, we need to think through our public and active travel connections, our barriers and our opportunities here. Some of this work has been done, but we are at an early stage. CSIRO have identified that more than 200 hectares of the site, around a third of it, should be conserved because they have high ecological value. They need protection for the box gum grassy woodland, the native grassland ecosystems, the golden sun moth and the striped legless lizard. If we do not protect them, we are contributing to the extinction crisis that is taking place all around Australia.
Greenfield development does take time. It is not an easy or quick solution to a wicked problem—that of housing shortage. It is a way to create homes, but we have so many steps before we can skip to the end and get those homes.
We are in a climate crisis. We know this. It is here. It is real. It is already changing the way we live our lives. We have to make every single major decision in here a choice for the climate. I will once again refer to the latest IPCC reports. They are telling city planners and city managers like us exactly how to deal with climate change: infill, not sprawl; public and active transport; and well-defined transport corridors. We need to
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