Page 4803 - Week 16 - Monday, 25 November 1991
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Mr Wood: I will continue to do so if you like, on various matters.
MR KAINE: Give us your notes in future, Bill. We have reservations about clause 6 as well. Mr Jensen has not explained to us why he thinks the opinion of the Minister for Urban Services or the board of ACTEW is relevant. If he can convince us that there is a good reason for this we may well be persuaded; but he has not.
As I have already pointed out to Mr Jensen, the form of his amending Bill could well be ineffective anyway because he specifies the Minister for Urban Services in certain connections. It is quite likely that when the new Assembly convenes next year there will not be a Minister for Urban Services. You cannot be as specific as that.
I have suggested to him already that, whether or not he can persuade us that this is a good amendment, he might want to change it to read "the Minister responsible for traffic management and safety", or some more general words, rather than specifying a Minister who may not exist. So, we have some reservations about clause 6.
As Mr Wood has suggested, the Government will accept the amendments proposed in clause 9, and so will we. It is a simple progression from what the current Act states and is in line with the Liberal Party's philosophy of giving the community, as was done in the Forrest bowling club case, another opportunity to express an opinion. However, I think it is appropriate that the Assembly's committee should have an opportunity to comment on these matters.
We cannot support the repeal of Division 4 of Part III of the principal Act, so that means that we reject clauses 4 and 11 of Mr Jensen's amending Bill. The simple fact is that the Government should be allowed as much flexibility as is possible to meet the needs and expectations of this community.
To exclude the possibility of broad-acre development within the general constraints of planning policy and within the constraints of design and siting regulations and standards and the like is, in my view, placing an unreasonable and unreal constraint on the ability of government to meet the needs of the community. We do not accept those two elements of his amendments, and we will vote accordingly.
Mr Speaker, I think that there appears to be some consensus, except for the proponent of these amendments, as to what the general outcome might be; but I would much prefer to be carrying on this debate in the context of the major Bill that is before the house and not duplicating it here to no effect.
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