Page 2278 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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whole as to whether the recommendations are accepted or not.
The committee had to examine a number of matters. First of all we looked at the matters which we understood Mr Justice Kelly took into account in arriving at his decision, matters such as the growth in employment levels in the Civic centre. It seemed to us that the evidence that was presented to Mr Justice Kelly on the present status of the work force in Civic was an overstatement of the situation; that, in fact, the judge could have been led into making his ruling on the basis of incorrect evidence to the effect that somehow or other we had reached the ceiling in the Civic centre in terms of the permissible total number of employees according to the intent of the metropolitan plan and the Civic plan. We had to assess that evidence to determine what the true situation was in terms of the current level of employment in the Civic centre. We found that the level of employment is not nearly as great as was represented to Mr Justice Kelly, as we understand the evidence that was presented to him. So that immediately raised the question of whether Mr Justice Kelly was perhaps misled in the evidence that was given to him and on which he based his ruling.
We looked at things like traffic and parking, just what effect this project would have on the traffic flows and the parking problem in the Civic centre. We concluded, Mr Speaker, that the effects of this project in isolation would be minimal. It is reasonable to say that there ought to be a limit to the level of the employment force within the Civic centre, that there ought to be a limit to the traffic flow, and that there ought to be a limit to how many cars need to be parked. But to say that this project in isolation is the straw that has broken the planning back of the Civic centre, I submit, is going too far. What is required, of course, is a long-term plan for Civic that sets projects of this nature into some sort of a context. What we are doing at the moment is trying to set it in the context of a plan that was drawn up in 1973 or 1974 or something like that, a plan that one could argue perhaps is no longer relevant, given the changes that have occurred in Canberra - in the work force, in the population, in the commercial growth, and in public service employment - in that time.
Of course, we had to look at the relevance of the metropolitan and the Civic plans to see whether indeed they were still relevant. I think, generally speaking, the committee concludes that what is needed now is a revised plan. It is no good looking at what was determined in 1973 as being a fair and reasonable thing. That plan needs to be updated, and of course the Chief Minister has taken some initiatives towards that with the publication of a discussion paper. Some of us would say that it is too little too late but, in fairness, the Chief Minister has initiated action to have the plan updated. I think it is important that that be done, and that it be done as quickly as possible.
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