Page 2548 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 1991
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DISCHARGE OF ORDER OF THE DAY
Standing Committee Report on City Hill Billboard
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.09): Mr Speaker, I ask leave of the Assembly to move a motion concerning the discharge of order of the day No. 2, Assembly business.
Leave granted.
MR WOOD: I move:
That order of the day No. 2, Assembly business, relating to the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure's Report on City Hill Billboard be discharged from the Notice Paper.
I am removing this item from the paper as it is no longer relevant. I have removed the billboard, and the notice might as well follow. I read the report of the committee and I thought they were sound in their judgment. They said, "Knock it over", and I was only too happy to accede to that request. I consulted with my colleagues, of course, and we all agreed. I was quite delighted to pick up the phone one day and say, "Get it out", and a little while later away went the billboard.
The committee presented its report to the Assembly on 21 February. The Government considered the report and on 24 July made an announcement to give effect to the committee's recommendations. As a result, the billboard has been dismantled and it is appropriate that this order of the day be discharged; and there is widespread rejoicing about this in the community.
MR DUBY (4.11): Mr Speaker, I rise to refute absolutely that last statement by Mr Wood. It is well known that one of the few things that added a bit of life to the inner Civic area was the billboard, with its constantly changing and expanding panorama which met the people as they came down Northbourne Avenue. Who could forget the clown advertising the Canberra Festival or the scarecrow that advertised Environment Week, I believe - or was it the Canberra Show? I am not too sure.
It is remarkable, is it not, that a government that will not act on anything else acted with indecent haste in demolishing what had become a landmark within the Civic region. It was something which was, according to the opinion polls, extremely popular with the general population in the ACT. When you did your surveys of people in Civic, invariably you came out with the majority of people in favour of retention of the billboard. The statement that I would have made to the Assembly, in response to the committee's report recommending that it be removed, would have been that there are too many sites
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