Page 4232 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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The object of the Plan -
the Territory Plan -
shall be to ensure, in a manner not inconsistent with the National Capital Plan, that the planning and development of the Territory provides the people of the Territory with an attractive, safe and efficient environment in which to live, work and have their recreation.
I have not had a chance to see whether, as my colleague Mr Michael Moore clearly indicated in his speech, the plan fits that specification. Why should we in this house, unlike any other parliament in this Commonwealth, I would suggest, be asked to give a blank cheque in principle to a Territory Plan that we have not read? We have had the advantage, by grace and favour of Mr Wood, of an embargoed briefing on the plan; but we certainly have not read the large document itself. We have had a squiz at the computer printout of the colour plan, and we thank Mr Wood for that.
But here is a Government, Mr Speaker, which has put no money aside in the budget to implement the processes that have been put forward in this package; no money has been provided to set up the appeal structures to which my colleague Mr Humphries just referred. In effect, there will be no action until July 1992 under the Appropriation Bill, if it is passed; yet the debate has been pushed this morning. This is a non-consultative, unacceptable act, and I believe that the debate has probably gone far enough.
We have heard from Mr Kaine about the importance of this legislation, with which we all agree. Mr Moore has put very clearly the contrary argument to the plan. He has said that he is yet to give his detailed response to whether it complies with clause 7, that is, a safe, efficient and attractive environment in which to live. Clearly, Mr Speaker, it would do this Assembly no good at all - it would lower the esteem of the Assembly in the eyes of the people of the ACT - if we give in-principle endorsement to that which we have not even read.
There is no great planning imperative among those members of the Labor Party who are in this house. None of them attended the great debates of the late 1980s and the mid-1980s, and they do not appreciate what they are doing. I mean no malice in those comments. They are simply not across planning issues; they never were. Mr Wood has put a lot of time into it in his short ministerial tenure, but I implore him to get his colleagues to see the difficult position that we are in today. We have heard the views of Mr Kaine and Mr Moore. They have been useful introductions for the community.
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