Page 545 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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Basically, one of the issues that were raised by the submissions that came before the committee - and most of them were very good and very well argued - was the scarcity of other means by which community information and facilities and programs could be passed on to the people of the ACT. As I said before, because of its location, a lot of people go past City Hill at some stage, and it was seen as a facility by which a lot of people, including tourists, could get to know what was on in Canberra at that time. Other arguments were put, Mr Speaker, that were not so much in favour of the retention of the billboard per se, but were in favour of the billboard for special events. I expect that my colleague Mrs Nolan will make some comments on that. So I will not speak further on that; I will leave that discussion to her.
Another point that was considered by the committee in this matter was the role of the National Capital Planning Authority. The National Capital Planning Authority, in its submission to the committee, quite clearly said:
if the proposal ... were submitted to the Authority for works approval, as it would have to be once the National Capital Plan is approved, the structure would not be approved.
The reason for this, of course, Mr Speaker, is that that part of Civic is classified under the National Capital Plan, which is now a formal statutory document. I do not think the disallowance process is quite yet completed; but I have not seen any indication that, in fact, that may not be the case. Clearly, it is a designated area, and the National Capital Plan says that it has planning responsibility for that particular area. Therefore it is from the National Capital Planning Authority that planning approval has to be sought.
The committee noted, with some concern - and I am quoting from paragraph 4.5 of the report - that:
... no decisive action had been taken by the two planning bodies to either provide formal planning approval for the continued use of the billboard or seek its removal.
There seems to be a suggestion around, Mr Speaker, that they will wait for the committee to report before the final decision is made. That brings me to my final comment on this matter. What should we have after the billboard goes, if this recommendation is accepted by the Government? Of course, the planning authorities' action may well flow from that.
There was a suggestion that there was a requirement for some form of community information process for the people of the ACT. In fact, the committee looked at a number of suggestions that were put forward. For example, the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning argued that such a system should:
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