Page 147 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 1990
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we find the origins of the difficulty that we face today arising from the two volumes of the draft plan of the National Capital Planning Authority. This document, quite rightly, does not seek to be precisely definitive as to how the demarcation of responsibility between the Territory and the Commonwealth should be arrived at.
The Commonwealth Government and the Territory Government are each charged with certain responsibilities as they relate to planning matters, but no clear demarcation is provided there. In the draft plan of the National Capital Planning Authority it has attempted to make a demarcation. In quantity terms, if you wanted to exaggerate just a little - not that I am given to exaggeration - it would not be unreasonable to say that of the total planning responsibilities for the ACT, be they national or territorial, the National Planning Authority has claimed 95 per cent and has left 5 per cent for the Territory Planning Authority and the Territory Government. I believe that is not a bad sort of presentation of its division of powers.
We submit that it has grossly exceeded the intentions of the Commonwealth Parliament. I think that in the reviews which will take place until the final plan of the National Capital Planning Authority is decided there will be some examination of what was the intent of the Parliament and of the Government at that time because that will be important.
I believe that if the plans, as put forward by the NCPA, are implemented in their existing form we will see a burgeoning bureaucracy within the National Capital Planning Authority, which will have dimensions greater than that of the NCDC at its largest. That is something which must be resisted because if we have an exceptionally large National Capital Planning Authority we would find it in constant competition with the Territory Planning Authority in seeking to assert responsibility. So we have only one opportunity, and it is the one which is before us now. I believe that if the boundaries are not drawn in the context of the current debate the door will be closed upon us and the opportunity will be denied. We will never recover the ground. If we are to have an impact it has to be made now.
The Labor Party has arrived at a position which is somewhat different from the proposition put forward within the draft plan, and of course it is dramatically different from the grovelling submission of the Residents Rally party to the National Capital Plan as proposed. Our plan has a number of features in which we seek to - - -
Mr Moore: Look after the developers.
MR WHALAN: I have just had an interjection from Michael Moore about looking after developers. It is typical of some of these inner suburban yuppies like Mr Moore and Mr Donohue to brand anybody who criticises the draft plan of the National Capital Planning Authority as some sort of lackeys of the developers. I refer you to the Residents
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