Page 1562 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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MR LAMONT (12.21), in reply: I appreciate the support and the issues that have been raised in the debate here this morning. I think it is important that this matter be given the fullest public airing possible while we are proceeding with the finalisation of the Territory Plan. Madam Speaker, I wish to touch quite briefly on a number of the issues that have been raised - in particular, the questions raised by Ms Szuty and Mr Moore. It is not the intention, as I understand it, of this Government or of this motion to deprive the inner urban areas of that essential character which we all know and love as the garden and open city of Canberra, the bush capital. But Mr Connolly has pointed out quite rightly that to proceed along the lines of the North American experience would basically provide us with an urban renewal program of ghettos, which would end up being walled, strata-titled unit arrangements, as they are in North America, patrolled by security guards and which, quite frankly, are a blight on the landscape.
That certainly is not what urban renewal in the ACT is all about. It is about using that essentially unique character of our city and enhancing, not diminishing, it. It is about doing it in such a way that the community as a whole benefits from the amenity. It is not a singular issue. It is not saying, "An individual may be advantaged if we do this". We are talking about what advantages the community. I think that is what we should bear in mind when looking at the protestations of Professor Troy in his paper, which I have read and which raises some interesting and novel arguments about the concepts of urban renewal. I believe that some of the issues raised by Professor Troy need further consideration, and I would certainly support any endeavour which would see them being given such further consideration.
But I say to you, Madam Speaker, that it is essential that now we address the question properly. We have the opportunity now, and we need to take it, so that the costs for us as a community in four or five years' time are not so high that people simply cannot afford to live in the Australian Capital Territory. That may be how we arrive at ecological sustainability as far as population is concerned. When I asked Mr Moore, he could not tell me how this new, mythical, ecologically sustainable population process was going to be put into place, and I deny that anybody else whom I have heard speak or seen write on this matter can give me a definition as to how to achieve that. Some people are saying that we should not allow any expansion in the size of the population of the ACT. That, Madam Speaker, is a Luddite approach to the problem and is not worthy of being included in a debate in the 1990s on how we develop Canberra into the next century.
Madam Speaker, as I have said, I appreciate the level of debate and the contribution from all of the speakers. We have worked cooperatively in the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee on the public works program and in the other committees of this Assembly, and I hope that the same level of cooperation can be extended over the coming period to all of the members of this Assembly, to ensure that this time we all get it right. I commend the motion to the house.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Sitting suspended from 12.26 to 2.30 pm
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