Page 4529 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
site may well spoil the ambience of that area. That, in effect, I am sorry to say to those folk - I know that they are here in the parliament today listening to this debate - boils down to a matter of judgment.
I personally am not an expert in landscape architecture or in the type of work that would be involved in obtaining the best usage out of a particular piece of land. Such people work, I believe, within the planning areas of various departments. They have set guidelines for development of this site. From all that I have been able to learn and discover, the proposal meets those guidelines in every respect.
It then boils down to a matter of judgment, from those who are opposed to the scale of the development, as to what is an appropriate level of development for that site. I think of a number of matters simply involving judgment. Whilst I was Minister for Urban Services I was continually being criticised by persons who would mention, for example, pink pavers in Civic. It was a matter of judgment, in their view, that the pink pavers were not appropriate for Civic, that the pink pavers did not meet their particular requirements.
Mr Connolly has a smile; undoubtedly, he has had the very same comment made to him. In my view, they do meet the requirements of Civic and they are a cost-effective way of doing whatever needs to be done in the town. They meet the guidelines set for street coverings. That some persons do not particularly like the design, the size, the shape or the colour of the pavers does not mean that they are an abomination. But some people feel strongly that that is the case.
I personally have grave doubts and grave concerns about the design of the darling of Mr Jensen, the Tuggeranong Town Centre. I personally have doubts about whether it is a fitting design for a modern city in terms of the concept of the supposed federation country-town style. I personally do not particularly enjoy that look. Some people think it is terrific and it has undoubtedly won architectural awards. It just falls down to a matter of judgment.
The prime example we have of something like that was brought home to me last week when I was attending a function at the Telecom tower. The Chief Minister attended, along with the Federal member from the Northern Territory, Mr Snowdon, who assists Mr Beazley. They both confessed while they were at the function that they had led the protests back in the early days of trying to stop the bulldozers from being involved in the construction of the Telecom tower on Black Mountain.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .