Page 5373 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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much more important in planning than the new suburbs that we design. It is not a blank cheque to developers; it is nothing like that at all - and I think it is a gross misrepresentation to say that it is. It is also, let me repeat, a very considerable turnabout on the part of those members of the Alliance who had earlier supported such proposals.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.46): Mr Speaker, what I am about to say I could say under standing order 46, but I will use my right to a second speech to say it instead. Mr Collaery may have been listening to his gnomes; but he obviously did not listen to me, because he said on the record that I had advocated the abdication of the planners from planning. I did nothing of the kind. In fact, I went to great lengths, I thought, to explain that, under development of a piece of defined land, all of the normal prescriptions would apply - and I even mentioned design and siting rules, I believe.
So, there is no such intention in this Bill, and certainly not in my mind - should I become the Chief Minister again and the planning Minister next year. There is no intention for - and this Bill will not allow it - the planners to abdicate from the job of planning, even in respect of defined land. Mr Collaery objects to other people putting into the Hansard things that are unfavourable to him. I think he needs to have some regard for what he says about others.
There is no such intention on my part; there is nothing in this Bill that would permit it; I did not say it; and clearly there is no intention on anybody's part that planners abdicate from their job. They would have just the same responsibility in connection with land being developed as a piece of defined land as they have under any other arrangement in the city.
In fact, I would suspect that, planners being planners - and they have demonstrated that they have a certain zeal in Canberra - they would probably be even greater zealots in making sure that what happened within a defined area was consistent with the planning legislation, the Territory Plan and other guidelines and regulations than perhaps they might be in other areas, because they might well feel, as Mr Collaery apparently does, that, if they do not make sure that things are happening correctly within a defined area, then they could easily slip and something could be allowed to happen there that might not be desirable. So, to repeat: The concept of defined land does not imply that the planners abdicate, and I did not say that they would.
MR JENSEN (12.49): Mr Speaker, there are a couple of things that I think it is important to remember. Maybe Mr Wood misunderstands the application of the term "defined land".
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