Page 5389 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, as members will be aware, a motion was passed in the Assembly on 27 November 1991 that referred the proposed variations to the Territory Plan for Griffith, section 96, block 1, and Forrest, section 24, blocks 4 and 5, to the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee for inquiry and report. These two variations are related to the proposed redevelopment of the Capitol Cinema in Manuka. That motion, as passed in the Assembly, stipulated no reporting date. However, in a letter that I received from the Planning Minister later on the day on which the motion was passed - that was Wednesday, 27 November 1991 - the committee was informed that:
It will be necessary ... to examine the variation(s) and report to the Executive by 1 December.
The imposition of a Sunday, 1 December, reporting date meant that the Government was requiring the committee to complete in one working day an inquiry and deliberations on a complex planning variation that would normally require weeks, at least, to finalise.
The proposed variations were referred to the committee by the Minister purportedly under the provisions of the Interim Planning (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1991. This Bill has not yet been enacted and is, of course, irrelevant. The Minister was obviously aware of this, because on Tuesday, 26 November, he presented six other variations to the Assembly without referral to the committee. For some reason, only one of the seven variations to arise since the passage of the Interim Planning (Amendment) Bill, the Manuka proposal, has been referred to the Planning Committee for inquiry and report. One has to ask, I think, why this has been done.
Clearly this fact, combined with the imposition of one working day to complete the inquiry, suggests that the Minister is not taking the committee inquiry process seriously and has a reason, not declared, for attempting to take this course of action.
The committee, of course, will comply with the requirements of the Interim Planning (Amendment) Bill when it comes into force. Until it does, however, I believe that it is incumbent on the Government to be consistent with past approaches to dealing with planning variations.
Under existing arrangements it is the responsibility of the Government, and the Planning Minister in particular, to deal with the proposed planning variations for Griffith, section 96, block 1, and Forrest, section 24, blocks 4 and 5. The Government should make that decision without further delay. It has the necessary input from the
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