Page 1528 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.52): Madam Speaker, I move:
Omit all words after "planning development proposals which:", substitute the following:
"(1) examines any difficulties identified with the development of section 22, Braddon with the aim of finding a way to avoid such problems in the future;
(2) considers how the consultation process for similar developments can be improved.
The inquiry is to report to the Minister by the first sitting day in June 1993 and the report of the inquiry is to be tabled in that sitting week.
The inquiry is to be conducted by a person nominated by the Minister, not being an officer of the ACT Administration.".
This matter has been discussed for an hour. Mr Moore did not speak when he moved his motion. I presume that he will exercise his right of reply. I want to indicate, further to what I said in the MPI debate, the way things are done in Canberra. I was aware when I came into this Assembly that there was some level of anxiety about development proposals in the ACT. I was not involved enough at that time to know whether or not those anxieties were justified. But two-and-a-half years later, when I became the Minister responsible for planning and lease management, in effect responsible for all those factors to do with development proposals, I suddenly developed a very fine antenna and a close interest in what was happening in various agencies of my department.
I scrutinise everything carefully. I have explained elsewhere that I keep an arm's length approach from developers. Only in three or four circumstances now, in two years, have I actually spoken to someone about a proposal, and this was one. I sought to talk to Bobundra, not because I had anxieties about where it came from but because I wanted to stress the importance of the design and siting issues. I did not ask to look at the documentation leading up to the proposal or anything of that nature; but I did want to see their plans and see how they proposed to do it. This was after talking to Mr Moore, when he expressed concern about the solar orientation. His views and mine are quite the same on that matter.
As a result of my discussions I required the Planning Authority to go back and do some other work on solar efficiency; to look, for example, at the six pack model, that is, turning the proposal at right angles to Torrens Street to see whether that would give them better solar orientation. In fact, it would not have, because of overshadowing in midwinter. We went into it very thoroughly. In the end I became convinced that the proposal, in its last form, which was never agreed and approved, was probably superior to anything applying in Kingston. I believed that it had reached a very high standard. But I am digressing, because what I wanted to indicate was that I very seldom meet with developers.
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