Page 4440 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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the process by the Government. The residents of Forrest will have lost the last avenue of appeal against a proposal that, frankly, has been a bit of a movable feast.
With such a large number of residents opposed to either the development proposal or the scale of these developments, plus the obvious objection by the Heritage Committee, one really must question where the pressure has come from. It would seem that there has been a strong link between proponent and government in this process. Unfortunately, time did not allow the committee to check this concern out further. It is my view that I probably would not have received from my colleagues support for such a move.
However, to be fair, I would like to exclude the Canberra Bowling Club in general from this concern. I have no doubt that any struggling club approached by an astute developer saying "Haven't we got a deal for you!" would be very keen about a way to drag themselves out of trouble and obtain a new clubhouse and some new facilities. One cannot blame the club for taking the course they did, although, as we know, this is not the first time a proposal for a redevelopment of this type has been put forward. The last one did not go forward because the Alliance Government chose to take a view different to the one taken by this Government, but it is the one that managed to go the furthest.
As members can see from my dissenting report, I was unable to support the most important part of the report - the paragraph on the scope of the inquiry, as proposed by the chairman during the public hearings, and the conclusions. No recommendations were made by the other two members, as they were clearly of the view that the proposal should go ahead.
It is unfortunate that the views of the residents who will have to live with the results of this report and who submitted their objections - we saw 780 signatures on a petition which was tabled in the Assembly today - were not taken into account by my colleagues, or, if they were, they appeared to carry very little weight. The least the other two members could have done was to recommend disallowance, to allow the Minister to reconsider the proposal and seek a compromise position that would have ensured that all parties were given an opportunity to take it further.
In fact, I detected from some of the closing comments made by Mr Kaine that, with hindsight, he may have considered that course of action. It is unfortunate that that did not take place. It would seem to me, Mr Speaker, that the proposed changes, driven by a "develop or bust" philosophy, are not good planning and will not be good for the future of that part of Griffith.
It was almost as if the proposal was set in concrete before the draft variation was tabled. Frankly, the proposal to relocate the clubhouse and the access to the site was
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