Page 1553 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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and that it can respond to change. Any thinking we have now about the year 2020 will be completely different, I expect, in even a few years' time. I would not like to see a situation arise where we were sitting around working out some fine words about our future aspirations and overlooking the pressing matters that require action right now in order for us to have any chance of a future.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (9.22), in reply: Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank members for their comments on the second stage of the Canberra in the Year 2020 study. Could I say at the outset that I would not want members opposite to proceed down the track, as they appear to me to be doing, of believing that the issues papers which have been released are definitive papers. They are, in fact, designed specifically to set out some key issues, certainly not all key issues, and to stimulate discussion. So, to the extent that they appear to have stimulated members opposite, I guess they have been successful. But their purpose is not to set out a definitive position. They are to form the basis for discussion. Each of the documents examines some of the important economic, social, environmental and technological issues or trends that are likely to be important to, or likely to have an impact on, Canberra's future. The papers set out some of the choices, but by no means all of the choices, that might face the community, might face governments, as we move well into the next century. I think members have perhaps been under a misapprehension that these papers set out the Government's position or set out a definitive position. There is no such intention. They are discussion documents.
Mr Deputy Speaker, later this week I will be tabling the third progress report on the 2020 study. I take the opportunity to remind members that in fact the process and the very basis of this study were matters on which the Assembly itself passed a motion. The Assembly motion was to the effect that the Government inquire into and report on strategic planning in the ACT, addressing the key question of what Canberra would be like in the year 2020. Members opposite who have taken the opportunity to rubbish the entire process should remember that in fact it was this Assembly that resolved upon the question and resolved upon the process.
I reiterate that the papers are for discussion. In fact, the reference group that has now been appointed to continue with the 2020 study has been using these documents for some very extensive debate in the community. I am told that the reference group, under the chairmanship of Dr Peter Ellyard, has in fact been in touch with some 50 community groups, and the reference group itself has met four times to date. They are seeking views from a very wide range of people in the community. The reference group itself is drawn also from a wide range of community interests. The business, multicultural, environmental, Aboriginal, youth and community service sectors are represented on the reference group.
I advise members that that reference group's activity is continuing. It has been a very energetic process. The reference group's tasks are to review the goals, the issues and the options that are set out in the issues papers with the second stage report, to articulate community views concerning key issues for Canberra in the period to the year 2020 and to provide advice to the Government in the formulation of the final report to the Assembly. I reiterate that the papers before us at the moment will be subject to a great deal of change following a great deal of consultation with all sectors of the community.
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