Page 3421 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 25 November 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
That is what it says in about six different ways - "should be explored", "may be", "it is a possibility that". There is an exception to that, and I quote it explicitly from page 37:
The Territory Government has decided to provide health care and medical facilities on the site. These are to be integrated with other land uses.
There is nothing wishy-washy or may be about that. It says it explicitly, and that is what needed to be said in this document, bearing in mind that the Government had a commitment to do just that. It is in our policy; we wrote it in there, and obviously we are supportive of that policy.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.37): Madam Speaker, I begin by stating quite explicitly that the Liberal Party will not support Mr Moore's motion. I also foreshadow that we will not support the proposed amendment the Labor Party has indicated it is going to put forward. My reasons for taking this position are, I believe, quite logical and quite explicit. The first is, as the Minister has just pointed out, that there is a public consultation process in place that has been going on for a long time now about what the public expects to see this site used for. The discussion paper has been out for some time, and Mr Wood has properly noted that it is qualified by the fact that the Government has decided to provide health and medical facilities there. So, indeed, has the Liberal Party made a commitment to do that. I will come to the details of that in a minute, but the fact is that both the Government and the Opposition have made a commitment that there will be some health related facilities there, which the two parties differ on in detail.
I come to the summary of this report on page 47, where the National Capital Planning Authority and the Territory Planning Authority have indicated the generality of the way they see this thing going, but it is a discussion document. I do not believe that this Assembly should be cutting off, truncating, that public consultation process by passing a motion such as this. It anticipates what the public might decide in the end as a result of this discussion process. You cannot start a consultation process and then cut it off and say, "We are not interested in what you have to say". You must let the consultation process run its course. Only then can you say with certainty, whether you are in government or opposition or on the cross benches, that you are accurately reflecting public opinion today. Quite frankly, public opinion about Acton Peninsula three years ago, I submit to you, is changing. It is totally different today. Various elements in the community now have different expectations in connection with that site than they had two and three years ago.
My basic argument is that we cannot, nor should we, truncate a public consultation process that is in being. I criticised the Government for this once before in connection with land planning and development. There was a Territory Plan out there, and yet the Government, two weeks before election day, said, "We are going to change the rules. There is not going to be any infill. We are going to take all the pink bits out". That cut off the public consultation process that was still taking place about the Territory Plan. My position remains consistent. I did not agree that the public consultation process should be truncated then; I do not believe that it should be now.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .