Page 4176 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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in fairness, that the package of legislation builds on work done by our predecessors in government. I hope that the Assembly will approach these Bills in a bipartisan way.
As I said earlier, we do not see planning as a set of rigid rules. We see planning principles as the basis for protecting and shaping a living city. Canberra is a dynamic city; it is changing constantly. And the needs of its people and the economy need to be reflected in planning decisions. In other words, planning principles need to reflect the imperatives of social change. It should be remembered that the plan is not the city. The role of the plan is to facilitate the actions of a range of players. Many of the major components of the city, such as offices, shops and the like, are provided by private enterprise, and their provision depends on an assessment of market viability.
Similarly, the provision of public facilities has to be undertaken, bearing in mind questions of viability and the finite resources of the ACT. But this does not mean that sound planning principles can be disregarded, either to attract investment or to provide cheaper public facilities. Basic to planning are the fundamental objectives of access, equity, safety and environmental protection. These are relevant in a whole range of areas such as transport, the development of town centres, the protection of the environment and the provision of community facilities such as education and health.
I wish to stress, Mr Deputy Speaker, that these principles have not been treated simply as words by this Government. As I said earlier, we have been prepared to bite the bullet on hard decisions which our predecessors could not or would not confront. For example, in the fields of transport and the environment this Government took the decision to ban commuter parking from the residential areas of Reid, Braddon and Turner, giving priority to the environment of those suburbs and considerations of equity. I might add that, in doing so, this action redressed an erosion of planning principles allowed under the previous Government.
As other elements of this concern, we have undertaken a study for an intertown public transport route and commissioned studies for giving priority to buses and removing much of the through traffic from Civic. The Government has also been keen to ensure that the development of Civic has been in accordance with sound planning principles. Earlier this year we released a report on environmental monitoring. It formed the environmental basis for decisions on development proposals in the Civic area, particularly in relation to the old Canberra Times site. Those principles will be applied to other development proposals that are currently being undertaken. The study was complemented by more detailed environmental assessments on two specific development proposals. Once again, Mr Deputy Speaker, this was an area in which the previous Government simply failed to act.
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