Page 4200 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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There will be no Toys 'R' Us for the Tuggeranong people. Blow you! There will not be one". Madam Speaker, unlike that pattern, the Government will be looking at the shopping and retailing facilities for the residents of South Tuggeranong in a very thorough and very consultative manner.
Local shopping does provide one of the cornerstones of community well-being and community development in our new residential areas in particular. There are some 12,000 residents of South Tuggeranong who currently have no access to a local shop and therefore are not able to meet their daily needs in the way that the rest of us are. Many of those residents, as Mrs Carnell points out, and I agree, are women, often with young children and often without access to a car during the day. They need a readily accessible shop for emergency and everyday needs. Madam Speaker, as a government we have provided adequate community infrastructure, and we do need to augment this infrastructure, particularly with shopping facilities for those 12,000 residents.
The Minister, Mr Wood, has outlined in detail the way that the Government proposes to handle the issue of retailing in a comprehensive and thoughtful way. The Tuggeranong retail study will provide the information that is needed. Like the Minister, I think we should also be clear that the proposal by Leda, if it were to go ahead, would add significantly to retailing in Tuggeranong; but before it went ahead it would be subject to the most extensive planning and evaluation, to consultation with the community, and, of course, to environmental assessment. Of course, the Opposition skated over all of that.
The Government's view is that the most desirable approach to development proposals is one which does involve both a proactive and an interactive relationship with the community, to ensure that its needs are fully considered in the development of a specific project. The lodgment of an application or the presentation to the community of worked-up plans, with the implication that the Government has already accepted a proposal for consideration, and that therefore there has been some irrevocable step taken, is quite unacceptable. It is quite wrong and it creates significant suspicion. To promote that idea is simply to promote a lie, a falsehood. Leda would be required, if they were to proceed, to go through extensive preconsultation to allow for the early identification of issues before embarking on the more formal consultation steps, which would only follow the lodgment of an application. As I understand it, there is none.
There are a number of steps that need to be followed, Madam Speaker. There is the first round of consultation with the community on its particular aspirations. There would be a report prepared outlining all of the views. There would be a round of technical meetings, followed by a round of technical studies leading to a preliminary design proposal. Later, there would be meetings with community groups to discuss the community brief. Further on, comments from that round of consultation would be put to the ACT Planning Authority. Following that, there is the statutory assessment of the proposal, which involves leasing, design and siting, and environmental assessment. Each of those requires public notification, and each would open up third party appeal rights. Those stages, of course, can be conducted concurrently. To conclude, Madam Speaker, I am dismayed at the Opposition's approach on this matter. It is opportunism of the worst sort. An off the top stunt is what it is. It is a disgrace. I think it does very little justice to the residents and the consumers of Tuggeranong, and certainly not to Canberra's business community or future investors in the Canberra community.
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