Page 1445 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
SCHOOL SITES - TERRITORY PLAN
MR MOORE (11.53): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move:
That:
(1) the advertisement in the Canberra Times on Friday, 12 April 1991 calling for comments on the Draft Variation to the Territory Plan for several school sites be rerun with the following corrections, namely that it (a) be written in plain English; (b) be unambiguous; (c) remove any wording which might suggest, by its very complexity, that objections from members of the public might not be well-received; and (d) be written in a tone that is friendly and encourages community submissions.
(2) a further period be made available to allow preparation of submissions.
In the Government's headlong rush to ensure that these school sites are bulldozed, cleared and made ready for development for a range of possible developments, the Government has allowed a very brief period - a three-week period - for the community to provide submissions. It is, of course, the minimum period that has been allowed for any such submissions.
Yesterday I spoke at length on why that period is inappropriate. Even allowing for that period, with an advertisement like the one that appeared in the Canberra Times last Friday, it seems to me that, if you accept that a further advertisement is needed, then, quite clearly, a further consultation period, of at least the minimum three weeks, ought to be provided as well. Just a few minutes ago, the Attorney-General, Mr Collaery, in his speech - in fact it was at 11.42 - said that his Government was committed to opening this Assembly as a consultative forum.
If we are interested in a consultative forum, then we have to ensure that everything that we do encourages that openness and consultation. The only friendly thing about the advertisement in the Canberra Times was the quite big print "Invitation to Comment". As a person who has provided a series of submissions to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the ACT and, in fact, many other places, I am relatively familiar with invitations to comment in terms of variations. When reading this particular invitation to comment, there does not appear to be any friendly way, or any easy way to understand what it is on about.
What is easy to understand and what is done quite well is that at the top of the advertisement, in quite dark letters, it is made clear that Lyons, section 41, block 1, is the Lyons Primary School site. There is no attempt to indicate that we are not dealing with the school site. The
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .