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Mr Hird: Bill, keep working on it, son. It is better under a Liberal government than under your ex-Government.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, would you draw Mr Hird's attention to the fact that he is not following the running orders for the Liberal Party not to interject any more now that they are in government?

MR SPEAKER: Continue, Mr Wood.

MR WOOD: There has been a remarkable change in question time, has there not? Now that they have changed their strategy, it is much quieter than it used to be.

MR SPEAKER: Relevance, Mr Wood!

MR WOOD: Let me move on to UDAC. I have to say that I am pleased with Mr Humphries’s comments about UDAC and his confidence in the Urban Design Advisory Committee. It was a great achievement to set that up. The calibre of the people on that committee is outstanding. I think that in the near future it is going to have a most significant impact on planning in the ACT.

Let me go to the LAPACs, the local area planning advisory committees. These again are a demonstration of Mr Humphries’s stop-start approach. Let me go back in history. Before the election a great deal of activity was occurring. I think we had even rented space or we were about to rent space for these committees. There was extensive consultation with the community, and we were expecting that they would be up and running straight after the election. Today Mr Humphries is saying, “We have been sitting on our hands for three months. Now we are not going to put them into operation, but we are going to start thinking about what we ought to be doing with them. We are going to start to move in that direction”. He did not answer the question that is in everybody's mind: What is to happen to all those development proposals that are sitting in limbo at the moment pending the establishment of these local area planning advisory committees? Is there still a freeze on development in certain parts of North Canberra awaiting the advice from these committees? Perhaps you have told applicants what is happening, but I certainly do not know.

Mr Humphries: I said it in my statement today, actually.

MR WOOD: I looked through it. I did not see it.

Mr Humphries: As from the beginning of September, they have to be considered by the LAPACs; they are unfrozen.

MR WOOD: So, there is another period of delay; is that what you are saying?

Mr Humphries: That is right - while the LAPACs get settled.

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