Page 4512 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.53): Let me make it clear that I am not here as an apologist for the Government; I am sure the Minister can defend himself on this issue. So, I do not intend to defend the Government in terms of the decision that it has made. I have a great deal of sympathy with some of the views that were put forward by Mr Jensen. We have here a question of competing interests. There are all kinds of groups of people who believe that they have an interest, direct or indirect, in what happens to the piece of ground that is currently occupied by the Forrest bowling club. Some of those interests are relatively strong and some are relatively weak; but in today's world people believe, reasonably, that they have a right to express a view and that that view should be heard. That was why the Planning Committee took on the task of having another look at this thing in the first place.
As I pointed out yesterday, the Planning Committee has no statutory role to play in this process. Indeed, given the tone of some of the letters that I have received in the last few days, I suspect that I, as a member of this committee, would have been well advised not to step into the arena at all, to let the Government's position stand and let Mr Jensen and the Minister argue it out. I do not believe that that was reasonable. I believed that there were views that had not been fully expressed, that had not been fully heard, and that the Planning Committee should provide a forum in which those views could be presented. The question is: What happens after that process has taken place? On the evidence that was presented to me at the committee hearing, I do not believe that the Government has done anything improper; I think it has acted in accordance with the law.
So, it becomes a question now not of whether it is legal but of whether there are other factors that should impinge on the planning process. Some of us agree that there are, and, after months of development, we put before the Assembly a new planning Bill that would change the process. Sadly, that change has not yet occurred, and it cannot occur until the new planning Bill is debated and accepted by this Assembly and passed into law by the Chief Minister. That could be done fairly quickly; but it depends on how long this body wants to take to debate it and on when the Government, in the final analysis, wants to put that new law into effect. There is a cost associated with that, and the Government has to make a budgetary provision, perhaps up to three-quarters of a million dollars in the remainder of this fiscal year, to put that law into effect. So, there are other considerations.
I do not believe that any argument has been put forward that approval of the redevelopment of the Forrest bowling green is improper or wrong. Nobody has said that, and nobody has said that this redevelopment proposal in principle should not proceed. Not even the strongest opponents, who oppose it on the grounds of a heritage
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