Page 5778 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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the whole of the variation; we believe that it is probably appropriate to allow this to go ahead in the form that it is in, but we are proposing to take out those aspects of the document that relate to and identify defined land. This will mean that the normal process of Territory planning variations that should apply will be able to apply as these suburbs develop, and as we see the need.
This will enable the community to decide whether there should be a school at Ngunawal, whether there should be residential or community facilities, whether there should be a local centre in the suburb of Ngunawal South, for example. All these sorts of issues, we believe, are issues that should be raised by the community and with the community, and if we allow this defined land process to go through we lose all that opportunity.
Mr Speaker, as I said, we are not seeking to stop this proposal as it is. What we are seeking to do is to allow the community to have its final say in the evolving plan and the implementation plan of these areas. All we have, in fact, is six basic planning principles that the defined area has to work around. There is no appeal. There is no community consultation or no community involvement in the process of finally working out the implementation plans for these areas. There is no community consultation required. All we have is the basic planning principles.
It would seem to me that any lawyer worth his salt could argue that the planning principles as they apply here are pretty broad; that basically you can do anything you like within those planning principles, within reasonable bounds. But there is no clear indication as to what the final form might be. On that basis, Mr Speaker, rather than continue to labour the point that is being made again and again, we seek to have those aspects of this planning variation that relate to identifying the area as defined land removed from this document, to allow the normal process of planning and development to take place. After all, 8,000-odd blocks are going to be released over a long period.
It will also provide some breathing space while people sit down around the table and discuss this issue of defined land and its use. Maybe, between now and when we start taking this into account, we can come up with a process by which the implementation plans and further development can be identified. By voting against this today we will close off forever the ability of the community to become involved in the finalisation and the relationship of the detail of the plan and the suburbs of Gungahlin with the community. We are talking about a period of time and views will change, as we have seen in the ACT already. We expect it to happen in the future.
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