Page 4537 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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What we are talking about here, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, is a development proposal that has been put forward because it is just that - a development proposal. It is really not a proper assessment of the planning issues. Someone was talking about indoor bowling being good. I agree that it is good for Canberra. We are talking about indoor lawn bowls, if you like. What is it going to achieve in this area? The club, on its own admission, hopes to increase its membership by 200-odd. That is certainly not going to be putting thousands of members of the community onto the bowling rinks of Canberra. It just does not ring true and make sense to me.
There are also some problems associated with traffic. As I have already indicated, I do not believe that they have been properly and effectively addressed within the documentation that was put to the people. There are traffic problems associated with all the areas around there - National Circuit, Dominion Circuit and Hobart Avenue. This sort of proposal, the increase in density, is going to cause some problems for that traffic area. There was no proper assessment and no proper consideration of that put forward in the various papers that were provided. The development proposal being put forward is, as I said, just that.
It is time that this Assembly voted to reject this proposal that we have before us. We have no option. We cannot amend it; we cannot change it to include the safeguards that are necessary and required by the community. We cannot amend it to allow it to go back for revision and reconsideration. For those reasons I believe that this Assembly has no option, no option at all, but to reject this proposal as it stands and send it back for further consideration by the Planning Authority in full consultation with the community, so that we can achieve something that is going to meet the requirements of all of the groups involved in this debate.
I urge the Minister and I urge members of this Assembly to step back from the way that they are going at the moment because we are setting the standards for the future. I hope that this will not be the opening of the floodgates for these sorts of planning-led developments, or planning-driven developments, that unfortunately seem to be coming to the fore, as we saw by a recent release of nine variations. On that basis, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think it is appropriate that we reject this, and I hope that we can now put it to the vote.
MR PROWSE (12.23), by leave: Members, I am terribly concerned with what I see as an incorrect proposal. It has been stated by a number of speakers that no-one has challenged the principle, that there is no principle at stake here. I believe that that is not the case. The situation is that there was land granted for sporting facilities and that use is about to be changed. That is the principle. We are looking to infill. The talk from
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