Page 5719 - Week 17 - Thursday, 5 December 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
in relation to planning within the ACT. We also believe that they would have reduced a lot of the heat in the planning debate. I would be interested in some comments by Mr Kaine before we go to a vote on this one.
Mr Kaine: I disagree.
Mr Wood: We are opposing them.
MR COLLAERY (5.41): Before you close the door on it, Mr Wood, let me say that we are talking about protecting government revenue. We are talking about protecting capital expenditure. We believe that there should be some statement on the infrastructure augmentation effects of developments and that that should be a publicly accessible document, within the limits of commercial confidentiality. What is wrong with the community knowing what the infrastructure impact would be in terms of, for example, traffic engineering, traffic signals, augmentation of other reticulation services, in an informed and aware document like this? What harm would it do? Surely it would put down the issues.
When I speak to some developers, they cannot get over the surprise at the fact that they do not mind it being known that they are making an infrastructure contribution. They do not mind at all. In fact, they prefer people to know. Yes, they have been asked to pay $100,000 towards footpath regeneration and other issues. I cannot see that this is in any ideological frame. We simply think this would be sensible. It would help governments expose and explain their variations and other approvals. It is a matter which is accessible under freedom of information provisions, subject to commercial-in-confidence requirements. It is accessible under the 45-day rule or whatever applies in that circumstance. Why not make it available if ultimately it is accessible to the community?
MR MOORE (5.43): Mr Speaker, just to give an example of how useful the amendment that has been suggested would be, let me draw attention to paragraph (d) in Mr Jensen's amendment No. 6 - "a statement of the traffic generation that would flow from the variation". There has been considerable angst, I believe, over a series of developments in Civic and some debate as to just what traffic generation would flow from variations and the role that that plays in allowing variations to go ahead.
By having that information out and public, so that it is a straightforward thing, any appeal that takes place could well be foreshortened. The time could be reduced significantly simply by the information being there and being available. Having an urban impact statement which includes that sort of detail - obviously, before somebody does it, the details have to be there; you have to know - and having that sort of detail readily available to the public would be a positive contribution to reducing the time taken to deal with any appeals that do occur.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .