Page 5352 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.30): Mr Kaine is right. In principle, it would be nice to do this. We run tight budgets in this Territory these days. Some of these documents are very substantial in size and quite expensive. I would think that some that have been sold recently are subsidised in any case. Let me say that, if we agreed to this, we would have an open cheque here, because the amount that we would have to underwrite for it is truly very substantial. If we take "and purchase" out of that paragraph, what we are left with is something that says that papers are available for inspection. There is no requirement at all in any case that they be made available to be taken away.
Another point is that we have made documents available free of charge to a quite large number of bodies and groups. We did so recently with the draft Territory Plan. Significant bodies have these documents. So, I think that the intention is there to assist groups as far as possible, but some ability to charge must be there.
MR JENSEN (11.32): We are really talking about draft plan variations as well in this particular case. We are talking about the green papers that we have seen in the past, because that is what it is about - the draft variations. We have already seen the situation, in relation to the draft Territory Plan that has been put out, of the Government not being prepared even to advise those people directly affected by changes to policy in the area. The Government was not even prepared to provide that information.
That is why we have undertaken the exercise of providing that sort of information to the public, not only in the public libraries but also directly out in the suburbs. It is unfortunate that we are seeing this attitude from both the Liberal and Labor parties. The Labor Party - the Government - is a party committed to consultation. I am afraid I am very disappointed in the attitude of both parties, because it seems to me that they have lost touch, or lost some awareness of the focus of community consultation and what it is all about.
It seems to me that what we are talking about here is a possible attempt to reduce the number of people who are actually made aware of information that is provided and available. I think a prime example of that was the need for the Residents Rally to provide this document to the libraries. It was quite clear that some of the changes in the draft Territory Plan are quite substantial, as I have already indicated. I think that it is most unfortunate that both the Government and the Liberal Party in this place have taken this view on the provision of information to the public. I would suggest to them that, in most cases, providing sufficient information and detail to the public will make people aware of what is going on, encourage debate and get the issue over and done with.
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