Page 32 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 16 February 1993
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Mr Berry: Come on, no!
Mr De Domenico: What do you mean by, "No, no"? Are you disputing the Speaker's ruling now, Mr Berry?
Mr Kaine: He expects the Speaker to do as she is told.
Mr De Domenico: I know; he expects her to do what she is told.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! There will be order, Mr De Domenico. I am asking Mr Kaine to consider his words, and we may revisit this matter later.
MS SZUTY (4.13): Madam Speaker, I believe that the Government needs to be commended, first and foremost, for adopting the Assembly's reference on the development of a strategic plan and for the general high quality of its first quarterly progress report, presented to the Assembly in late 1992. The Government's commitment to the task and its outline of the stages of the process are sound, and I look forward to the release of the issues papers before the end of the month. The following stage of the process - discussion and synthesis - is even more important, and it is to be hoped that the whole ACT community will be able to participate in the process.
It is important that we develop a vision for the ACT together with the community, in addressing the wishes, wants and needs of the people who currently live here and in establishing our likely wishes, wants and needs for the future. What is regretted is the length of time it took the Government to recognise that a strategic plan or a vision for the ACT was necessary in planning for our future. It was always obvious that the Territory Plan was not going to fulfil that requirement. Some attempt has been made to incorporate strategic planning principles into the Territory Plan. However, these do not take the place of the strategic plan the Government is now working on.
Government should, first and foremost, be about vision, about setting the parameters, the goals and objectives, which our community should participate in setting and responding to. They cover our population, the demographics of our community, our education, housing, health, justice, environment, economic, employment and finance sectors. It could be said that, due to the instability of the First ACT Legislative Assembly, the development of this vision was never possible. However, this is not the case now, and the Government's strategic planning task becomes a very important one, being the first of its kind since the Metropolitan Policy Plan of 1984.
It is unfortunate that decisions were taken during the life of the First Assembly which could have been different had a strategic plan been in place. The most obvious of these was the closure of Royal Canberra Hospital, which I and others continue to believe was a mistake. The Government has lost opportunities in not having a vision in place at the beginning of the life of this Second Assembly. However, the strategic planning exercise now in train enables us to focus on developing a shared vision for the ACT.
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