Page 473 - Week 02 - Thursday, 3 March 1994
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their leases changed to residential. One good example of the amount of money involved, Madam Speaker, was the proposed sale of the motels, the Red Cedars and the Lincoln Park. That auction went ahead some time ago with a pass-in figure of $5m. Fifty per cent betterment on that is a fairly significant figure. That is just one very small portion of the land we are talking about. We are talking about very large sums of money. I am talking about the value, not before and after values. To clarify that, I am not suggesting that that is $2m. We are talking about very large sums of money.
Quite clearly, Madam Speaker, the numbers are against us here and I accept that because, in the final analysis, that is the appropriate process. The appropriate process is that the Assembly as a whole decides, and I can see that that is how it is panning out. From the very minute that Mr Kaine indicated that he would be opposing any disallowance it was clear that the numbers were against this disallowance motion moved by Mr Lamont. I must admit that I was very impressed that he would move for disallowance, but I understand that he will not vote for it. That is simply the method of dealing with it.
Madam Speaker, I would urge upon members, particularly the Planning Committee, when they are dealing with another variation, that they do not leave us with this sort of timeframe to consider matters. I understand what is going on and I am not objecting to the process; I am objecting to the timeframe in terms of how much time an individual member has to study something like an economic analysis report, especially those of us who are not economists, and the ramifications of that because in the final analysis the decision appropriately belongs with members here. Members individually have to decide, whatever their reason, either to support a variation or to oppose it. Madam Speaker, in this instance I shall be supporting the motion of disallowance put by Mr Lamont.
MR LAMONT (12.03), in reply: Madam Speaker, we need to get this debate back to a proper perspective. The process which has been undertaken by the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee is the penultimate process of consideration of draft variations. I think it deserves some attention in the eight or nine minutes available to me. The PDI Committee tabled a report in this chamber last Tuesday. That report addressed a range of issues that were quite appropriate to be addressed. The public process that all of the members of the committee insisted be put into place was put into place for a quite valid reason. That valid reason was to test the veracity of the variation proposed by the Planning Authority and the veracity of issues that were being raised by concerned community groups.
I place on record the simple fact that a number of the issues that we have addressed to some extent may not have been addressed in the detail that they were had it not been for the North Watson Subcommittee of the Watson Community Association. I place that fairly and squarely on record today. We also placed that fairly and squarely on record in our report. To suggest that the Planning Committee rejects the views of the Watson Community Association holus-bolus is wrong.
I would like to go through the report. The report, after outlining activities by the committee and giving a clear indication as to what the variation covers, then went on to paraphrase the submissions that were received, on pages 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. On page 13 it outlines what we considered to be the key issues in this variation.
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