Page 2042 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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further application to go ahead with the section 38 development, which is now the Canberra Centre, said at the time that we needed a full environmental impact statement of Civic to assess the whole thing. We still have not had it.
That is your attitude to the environment and you make this decision on World Environment Day. I say, "Shame on you for choosing this day!". Then you produce this booklet which has very, very little in it apart from verbiage, with the exception of the passage on parks which I accept as very important.
Mr Jensen: Well, you had better tell us, Michael, otherwise people will not know. Which bits do you like?
MR MOORE: Keep your mouth shut, Jensen.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Jensen: I am sorry, Mr Speaker.
MR MOORE: I accept Mr Jensen's apology.
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed, Mr Moore.
MR MOORE: So what we find here with this particular site is that a comprehensive assessment of the prospects for Civic demanded by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the ACT in 1987 has never been carried out. Mrs Kelly does not think an environmental assessment is necessary for the new office block proposal. She believes the ACT Government should thoroughly investigate the developer's claim that there is no prudent or feasible alternative to building more offices before granting approval. So now the Alliance Government has made its decision. It made its decision, I suppose, on the words of the Supreme Court judgment, that environmental factors are to take precedence over what men of business would see as the commercial imperative.
I will quote that again because it is World Environment Day. Justice Kelly said, "Environmental factors are to take precedence over what men of business would see as the commercial imperative". The Government has reversed that. The commercial imperative has now taken precedence over environmental factors and you use these spurious arguments here that do not hold any water whatsoever to present that. What we have in this environmental statement - those opposite know it well, and Mr Jensen knows it very well - is a situation where they look very, very closely at a very narrow perspective on the particular area, as opposed to Justice Kelly's decision which looked at a very broad impact on the rest of Canberra and the need in respect of offices in Tuggeranong. Remember, Mr Jensen, when you used to speak about how we needed development in Tuggeranong and not in Civic. There was a time when you used to present that as part of your election platform.
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