Page 2817 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 September 1994
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Mr De Domenico said that he was "delighted to rise and to agree with Mr Lamont" in relation to this matter. This was in earlier days, before Mr De Domenico and I were elevated to the dizzy heights of deputy stewardship of the parties that we represent in this Assembly. Mrs Carnell said that she rose "to strongly support Mr Lamont's motion and the real need for a plan for, shall we call it, urban renewal" in the ACT. A number of other comments were made by Mr Humphries, but probably the most telling one was this:
We are all agreed on the objective, but I doubt that any two of us would agree on the way to reach it.
I think that is the essence of Mr Moore's motion today: We do all agree with the objective. Mr Moore, by putting up his hand and actively supporting the implementation of the Territory Plan - that well-researched and well-documented edifice of the planning process in the ACT - quite simply, did accept the objective. Despite the fact that he may now shake his head, that was the fact at that time. He supported the objective. Of course, there is dispute in relation to the context in which Mr Humphries put it - that there was doubt as to whether any two people would ever agree on the way that it should be implemented. But the objective of urban consolidation and urban renewal was a policy position that was broadly supported within this Assembly by all parties, by the Independents and by Mr Stevenson, as far as I can recall the debates.
The important point is that, in the process of establishing the Territory Plan, the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee went to public meetings, called public meetings and established a public and open process for considering the competing needs and interests. By doing so, it received the support of this Assembly in relation to the substantial changes that it made to the then draft Territory Plan. I believe that it was because of the process that we adopted that this Assembly ultimately endorsed the plan in the way that it did. Within that plan, we have a quite considerable and authoritative body of work that has established the qualitative measures to apply to all facets of dealing with technical issues under the Territory Plan, particularly the design and siting issues.
We have developed from the draft Territory Plan more rigid qualitative assessments about what we expect from the urban form. I do not deny, and I do not think that anybody in this place can deny, that there have been some terrible examples of the way in which dual occupancy has occurred on some blocks. Equally, there have been some outstanding examples of dual occupancy. The difficulty that we all have is to ensure that we remove the opportunity for the inappropriate implementation of dual occupancy wherever it may occur and to ensure that the qualitative assessments that are made and have been determined by this house are implemented in both the intent and the letter of the law.
That really is the test for this inquiry and for Mr Lansdown. From comments made, in particular by Mr Moore, and by you, Mr Acting Speaker, and Mr Kaine, that seems to be the way in which people will now determine whether or not there is a successful outcome from the Lansdown inquiry - by establishing it as a test. I am not quite sure what people want to get out of establishing it as a test. I think that there are competing political interests. On the one hand, we have some in this house who will use the test to keep the issue alive for the next six months. There are others who will use the test to determine whether or not we can substantially wind back development that has already been
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