Page 149 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 1990
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categories. That is the land designated because of the definition of the Parliamentary Triangle which runs from Parkes Way to the flagpole on City Hill and which encloses a slice of land between Constitution Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue. That slice of land would fall in as designated land. But it also seeks as designated land all of the land inside London Circuit. In addition to that, it seeks significant influence over the planning constraints in other parts of Civic.
I believe that the NCPA should keep its nose right out of Civic. I believe, and our party believes, that the NCPA's responsibility should be limited to probably one thing only, and that is the building height limit within Civic; it should have no role whatsoever in relation to London Circuit or the areas abutting Constitution Avenue which are not national land.
Mr Jensen: What about City Hill, Paul?
MR WHALAN: In relation to City Hill we would be prepared to concede the area inside Vernon Circle as designated land, and that only. That is the limit of what we would concede as designed land within the Civic area. The extent of NCPA influence should be limited to special requirements in relation to building heights.
In the very limited time left, Mr Speaker - I have not gone into the detail of our position - I want to say that all of our commitment to this particular proposal is predicated on another aspect, and that is that we have in place strong Territory planning legislation. We await with interest the Government's legislation that will be introduced next week. We will examine that closely, and we hope that we can reach agreement with the Government in relation to it. It is absolutely fundamental to our position.
If the Territory legislation is inadequate in fundamental areas so that the protections are not built into that legislation, we might have to reconsider our position in relation to the NCPA. But in general terms we would see there being established in the ACT a Territory planning authority which has the calibre of personnel and the commitment to upholding the principles of the national capital and planned environment which we have had to date into the future for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations. That is absolutely fundamental to our position. In that context we see those two planning authorities working in partnership.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (3.56): I must say how pleasant it is to find rationality returning to debate in the Assembly. In the last few minutes it has been quite a pleasure to hear Mr Whalan outline the Labor Opposition's approach to the planning function, and it was in marked contrast to the hysterics that we experienced earlier in the day.
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