Page 5875 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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I would urge the Residents Rally for once to get off the fence, to support something instead of objecting to everything. Let us deal with this matter. Then we can get onto some business in the Assembly that really is important and that really needs to be debated, rather than just giving this one the nod and letting it go.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.15): Mr Speaker, first of all, can I thank Mr Duby for initiating a very interesting debate. It has been one that has been enjoyable to listen to. I think it is important at the beginning that I should say that this was a matter to which the Government gave very careful consideration. It was not a draft variation that , like some, was instantly agreed to. We scratched our heads; we gave it careful thought. I pored through all the information and eventually took it to my colleagues with a recommendation to approve.
They also expressed their concern and did not readily agree. Indeed, I went with the Chief Minister onto the site and looked at the proposed extension to the theatre and also at the car park further up the road. Once we had weighed up all the pros and the cons we agreed to the proposal, as you well know. That agreement was dependent on certain changes being made to the variation or to the eventual outcome, so that the anxieties of some of the community and in particular of the cathedral can be accommodated.
I might say that in one sense this is a debate that we all regret having, because the original Capitol Theatre should never have been demolished. There is no question about that. I can state emphatically that under a Labor Party administration, under procedures that are now in place, such desecration would never occur.
Let me look at a number of the points that have been raised, and in particular the further development of the cinema. You would know that the owner of the Capitol theatre applied to purchase the adjacent car park, with some 23 car parking spots, so that she could extend her business with two additional cinema screens. She argued that in today's cinema world it is not possible to survive with the old-fashioned single theatre complex.
If you look at what has happened just recently in Tuggeranong, if you look at proposals for Belconnen, if you note the configuration of cinemas in Civic, you will agree with her assessment. Indeed, the Planning Authority so agreed; that in today's world, if that cinema is to survive, it needs to change the way it operates, and that needed to be done by expanding into the adjacent area, the car park, which of course was available for purchase, but subject to a draft variation.
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