Page 68 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 22 February 1994
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what the right number is, and that is why this report says that there will be about 600 to 650 in one specific area, and on every other block in the total area the Government has to make some determination about how many permanent residential units there shall be on a block-by-block basis. We have also excluded three specific areas from residential development, on the basis that there remains a potential requirement for tourism related development in that area. If you put houses all over it, in the year 2020 or 2025 there will be no opportunity left for tourism related development there. It is a matter that the Government has to seriously consider.
There are major recommendations here. The committee has given this proposal very serious consideration, as it did with Tuggeranong Homestead, knowing all along that this was going to be a test case in some respects for the Duffy-Holder development that has been withdrawn by the Minister, sensibly. If he had not withdrawn the Duffy-Holder proposal because of Mount Stromlo, we would have had the same considerations to face in that area as we had to deal with in North Watson. So this was a test case and the committee had to take the matters very seriously and come up with some conclusions that could translate into other proposals in the future. I think that we have done that pretty well. I know, as in connection with Tuggeranong Homestead, that there will be some people who are disappointed with the outcome; but the committee and the Government cannot satisfy everybody. It has often been said that anybody who tries to satisfy everybody is reaching for the moon.
Mr Connolly: Is that what you say in the party room about Mrs Carnell?
MR KAINE: No; that is what I say about you, because you are the guy who appears on television several times a day telling us all the good stuff you are doing, and you cannot be everything to everybody, Mr Connolly. You cannot achieve the objectives - - -
Mr Cornwell: He says the same thing about all his portfolios, Mr Kaine.
MR KAINE: I know. I know that he is a nice guy, but he cannot satisfy everybody. This committee could not satisfy everybody and the Government cannot satisfy everybody. I think that we have come up with a proposal that ought to reconcile most of the interests up there.
There is a matter that is outstanding. It was put to us from the outset, through the medium of the North Watson strategy, the better cities program and all of these things, that developing North Watson was an economic thing to do. The North Watson group put a counterargument to that. They said that it is not an economic thing; that it is not economically beneficial for the community to go ahead with this project. They put some very substantial evidence to us. The committee was not in a position, in my opinion, to take the argument put forward by the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning on the one hand - that said that this was a good, economic, and financially viable thing to do - while, on the other hand, the community was saying that this is not the case. We had two comprehensive arguments put to us. I believed that the proper solution to that was to seek a totally independent analysis of that proposition, to see whether DELP's argument stood up or whether the community's argument stands up, and the Minister has agreed to undertake that independent analysis. I do not know what the outcome of that will be.
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