Page 3098 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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the planning process deserves our urgent attention in the light of further urban redevelopment proposals currently being considered. Amendments to the Land (Planning and Environment) Act will be considered by the Government in conjunction with the adoption of the Territory Plan and by the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee in its consideration of amendments to planning legislation. The findings of the Todd report, I believe, make a significant contribution to these considerations.
MR KAINE (12.20): I do not intend to speak at length on this subject because I do not think it deserves a great deal of time or attention. The inquiry was initiated on the motion of this Assembly. What was done was consistent with that motion, and any member who gets up now and complains, I think, should look to themselves. Furthermore, Ms Szuty made an adverse comment about the Planning Committee. She is a member of that committee, and I heard no objection from her as to the way the committee considered this matter at the time. Her 20:20 hindsight is magnificent. The way the committee handled it is now unacceptable, or that seems to be her view.
Madam Speaker, this inquiry started off only because there was a suggestion of impropriety or dishonesty or illegality. That was the suggestion. That is why there was an inquiry.
Mr Wood: We had to be careful about it.
MR KAINE: Yes. Mr Todd skirts that issue, because it was not part of his terms of reference; but he does make the point that in speaking to a large number of people in that connection he found nothing that would support such a suggestion. I think that is the important thing that emerges from this report. He does make some comment about the processes through which variations are handled, but he also notes that a recommendation coming from the Planning Committee, if implemented, will rectify that.
I would also like to make the point, which Ms Szuty seems to have skated over, that the real objection, the real problem that was expressed publicly about this proposal, had to do with design and siting, not the original proposal to build additional higher density residential accommodation on the block. I emphasise that that is not the responsibility of the Planning Committee. The Planning Committee dealt with a proposed variation to the plan, to use the land for something different. We endorsed that, and we endorsed it quickly. Certainly, the process was completed within the three weeks that is laid down in the law, but why would it not be? There was no objection to the variation proposal. The objection was only to the design and siting, the buildings that it was suggested might be put on the block. There never was a firm design and siting proposal put forward. In fact, the proposal was withdrawn before they got to that point.
What is it that we are objecting to? What is it that Ms Szuty and Mr Moore find so objectionable? Is it that the Housing Trust, in conjunction with a private consortium, had the temerity to put forward a proposal to redevelop residential land to provide a higher density of residential accommodation on it? That seems to be the nub of their objection. They cannot be objecting to the design or siting, since there never was such a proposal put forward. I do not know what we were investigating, quite frankly. I do not know why the Assembly is wasting its time on this matter. Mr Todd has rightly noted that, if
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