Page 1452 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
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papers, announcing where it is available and so on, are certainly logical, but that is not what this debate is about.
Mr Kaine then went on to say that one paragraph is particularly difficult because of the requirements of certain legislation. That was the paragraph quoted by Mr Moore. Nevertheless, the whole sense of that text under the heading "Invitation to comment" does not give a clear impression of what this is about. For example, people have come to me asking me such questions as, "How much of the land around those schools is to be sold off?". It does not indicate that there. To show a map, for example, would be the logical, simple way to do it. There should have been a map of the sites, as the variation documents have.
Ms Maher: But people can ring up and ask for those.
MR WOOD: Yes, but then I thought the intention was that this should be as clear as possible. That is what Mr Moore and I are both now saying; that it should have been made as clear as possible. I have had people ring in and they have said, "Are they going to sell off all the green space around the schools?".
Mr Collaery: What did you say?
MR WOOD: I said, "No".
Mr Collaery: Thank you.
MR WOOD: I said "no" to that months ago when people were concerned about it. The school ground is not the entire green space that may surround the school. I have made that clear to many people over a long period. I would have thought that it would have been sensible, since this is such a significant issue, to put in that map. I am relying on my memory here, but I think I could go back and find other advertisements in the Canberra Times where I have seen maps displayed on much less contentious issues. I am sure your memory will tell you that too. I suggest that it has been done in the past. On this very important issue, it should have been done again.
The matter is one of expanding concern. To date, the arguments in the suburbs, where the schools have been closed, have centred very much on the efforts of the people who have children at those schools, plus others who have an interest. As I suggested the other day, it is now growing to encompass a great number of people who simply live in the suburb and do not want the amenity of the suburb diminished by the action of closing a school. There again, there are also numbers of people who live adjacent to those school grounds, and their homes and their yards may back on to the school grounds. They have an even greater concern.
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