Page 1552 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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MR CORNWELL: I bow to your ruling, Madam Speaker. I was interested in Mr Moore's comments, which were supported by Mr Wood, about the need to try to put people's workplaces near where they live. I would not argue with that. I think there is a great deal of sense in it. It reduces traffic flows; it obviously reduces pollution. Mr Moore went on to say that the Federal Government had a policy on that. I am afraid that it has not been respected very much over the years. For example, the taxation department moved many years ago from the Parliamentary Triangle to Belconnen, Mr Moore, as you would be aware.
Mr Moore: It is across the road.
MR CORNWELL: It moved to the Belconnen offices, and subsequently it came back to Constitution Avenue. Some planning!
Mr Wood: We cannot stop it.
MR CORNWELL: This is crazy. Mr Wood shakes his head and says, "We cannot stop it".
Mr Wood: We encourage them to follow the policy, but we do not have the power to say, "No, you cannot do that".
MR CORNWELL: It makes a bit of a mockery of the talk of trying to plan these things, when it really does not work because you do not have control over it. That raises another question.
Mr Wood: If we put that control on, you people would be the first to say, "Don't do it".
MR CORNWELL: I know, and that raises another issue: I would not want to see this sort of control.
Mr Wood: Make up your mind.
MR CORNWELL: Just a moment. Mr Moore speaks of these things as though they were something to be proud of, as achievements, when in fact there was not an achievement at all because the whole thing fell apart when they came back to Civic. Indeed, we all know that if any Federal department in this town is moved out it makes fairly desperate efforts to get back as close as possible to Parliament House on the ground that it needs to be near its Minister. As I said, I regard with some scepticism the comments that would suggest that we are somehow doing well in that area.
I think the other matter that Mr Moore referred to was in relation to schools. The evidence is very clear that the vacancy rate in our schools is increasing. I have just had a look at the figures for the North Canberra area, which seems to be being debated at some length here today. At the moment Dickson College has 242 vacancies, and Campbell and Lyneham high schools have vacancies which are increasing.
Mr Moore: Is that the same as spare spaces?
MR CORNWELL: Yes, spare spaces.
Mr Moore: Under the Gary Humphries definition of spare spaces, yes.
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