Page 4437 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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In connection with the clubhouse and the heritage aspects of the proposal, as I said, there was no evidence that the Government had fully taken into account the views of those people who believe - and with reason - that this site has a heritage value. Indeed, we noted, and we recorded in the report, our opinion that it is regrettable that, before the decision was made by the Government to accept the proposal, no evaluation was carried out of the feasibility of restoring at least the historic core of the building and what the costs of doing that might be. So, there was no evidence to suggest whether it was possible, physically and financially, to restore the building there to its original configuration, to refurbish it and retain it. Of course, in the time that was available to us we had no capacity to make that assessment either, and we in fact received no evidence as to whether it was possible.
The committee felt that it was not within our capability and perhaps it was even inappropriate for the committee to attempt to assess the economic viability of the redevelopment proposal that was being put forward. That is, do we need 26 townhouses? Are 10 enough? Should there be 45? We had no way of being able to assess that and, indeed, we have concluded that that really is a matter to be taken up by the club through the ACT Planning Authority. The Government itself has to make that determination through the normal processes. There is a process through which such proposals must go before approval is finally given to the design and siting of any buildings or other facilities proposed to be put on that block.
The final conclusion of the committee was that there is a strong feeling that, now that there is on the table a new planning Bill which changes the process for considering proposals, the new process should be put in place as quickly as possible. In fact, it was suggested to us that this project should be deferred until the new planning legislation is in place, because it allows appeal rights that do not currently exist and because it would allow the consideration of this particular proposal in a different set of circumstances and with new dimensions being taken into account.
The committee has not accepted that. The fact is that there is a law in place today and that there may be a new law in place next year. We do not believe that we could recommend that a possible future law should be applied to processes that are taking place today. That would be totally unacceptable and it would imply a retrospectivity in the legislation - something which most governments in Australia would find abhorrent. Legislation is generally not made retrospective, and we could see no justification in this one case - and it was clear that it was only in this one case that the proposition was being put forward - for recommending to the Government that it should set aside the consideration of this proposal and that next year's law, if the law comes into effect next year, should be applied now.
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