Page 4651 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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1988 - the final one was at the City Gate Motel, Lyneham - by which time the NCDC was on the ropes. The Block report had come in, the NCDC was about to go, and there was concern among former NCDC officers.
I go back for a moment to David Block and his report to the Prime Minister on the role and future of the National Capital Development Commission. The Rally was invited to comment by the statutory board, which we heard little of in those days. It was known as the National Capital Planning Committee, which was an entity under the then National Capital Development Commission legislation. The members of that committee as at June 1988 were Malcolm Latham; Mr John Andrews, architect; Mr McNeill, architect; Mr Lindsay, engineer; and town planners, Mr Hardman and Mrs d'Rozario. There was a cultural representative, Mr Tieck, and Professor Marceau.
It is interesting, I say to Mr Bill Wood, that there was a cultural representative on the National Capital Planning Committee at that stage. We have not managed to reformulate that prospect in the current Bill, but more of that at the detail stage.
There were continued meetings, and finally the production of some formal papers dealing with a revised Metropolitan Policy Plan and a major press release by the National Capital Development Commission announcing that there would be a new land use planning appeal system for this Territory. That had been foreshadowed on 4 March, exactly 12 months before the election for self-government, by Mr Latham in a press release.
That is a short overview of the groundwork to the land planning system. After that, there were a series of more specific meetings dealing with the type of land planning appeal system we wanted. Those meetings developed a high degree of commitment and equanimity between, believe it or not, the Residents Rally, other interested groups and the developer industry. I clearly remember coming to terms at one stage with Mr Bob Winnel; as Mr Kaine will appreciate, that was quite an event. We recognised the possibility of joint recognition of our bush capital and that to meet the requirements for the planning system we would need to continue with our joint objective of retaining the city in its built and natural form.
The one and only meeting of its type in that era was held on 11 March 1988. It was an action planning meeting for self-government, which had then interposed itself in the process. It was at that workshop on 11 March 1988 that I first met my colleague Mr Trevor Kaine. I recall him speaking at the meeting. A number of people who had been prominent in the former Assembly, including Barry Reid and others, spoke about what self-government could do for the planning process, the economic situation of the Territory, and so on.
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