Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2450 ..

MR WOOD (10.01): That is fine, but the response has not said anything. It says that there are a number of models, but the Chief Minister on many occasions has said, "This will be done without cost to the ACT taxpayer". I would like to get some idea of how that is to be achieved. I know that, in many enterprises, part of the responsibility of the private contractor, the person who wins the tender, is to put money into cleaning up, providing infrastructure and all sorts of things. It has always been my view that they discount; we accept that cost in the tender. What you have been saying suggests that that will not be the case, and this is the difficulty I would like you to explain.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (10.02): What you have explained is certainly one of the models we are looking at. As you know, we are planning to set up a permanent Kingston foreshore authority, which will include people with business expertise and other expertise as well, as soon as the committee reports and, hopefully, we get the go-ahead for the deal. There are a number of different ways to do it. One of them is the way you explained. One thing I can guarantee, Mr Wood, is that the land is worth more than it will cost to clear it. Therefore, the bottom line figure will be a black one, not a red one.

MR MOORE (10.03): I think one of the other questions that should be raised is that the current chair of the Kingston foreshore development committee, Mr Townsend, was with me in Osaka when we looked at that waterfront proposal, how it was funded and what has happened there. It was very interesting indeed. This is the same person who was responsible for a department that was dealing with such issues as this and which received a scathing report from the Stein inquiry. I think it is appropriate to draw attention to that.

The Chief Minister has to come to some of those fundamental questions about the methodologies that are being proposed to deal with decontaminating that site as well as the fundamental question of how that site will fit into an overall strategic plan for the ACT that she has announced. I think it is appropriate for her to deal with some of those questions. After all, an overall strategic plan for the ACT may indicate that it will be a long time before the site in Kingston is needed for the overall development of the ACT. If that is the case, what are we going to do with that site in the interim? I think those issues need to be addressed, as opposed to the gung ho approach of, "Let us go for this full waterfront development site as quickly as we can because it is a great business opportunity". It really has to fit into what the people of Canberra generally see as the way this city is to be developed.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (10.04): Mr Moore is quite right; the Kingston foreshore is very much a part of our overall strategic plan for Canberra.

MR BERRY (10.04): You have only to start with the name of this and you run into phonies. The land swap that was announced by Mrs Carnell has nothing to do with the Kingston foreshore. It is the bit of industrial wasteland behind the road. This has been described as the Kingston foreshore development. It is miles away from the lake - hundreds of metres, anyway - and it is described fashionably as the foreshore. I would not like to try to dive into the lake from there because I would not make it. I would go headfirst into the bitumen on the roadway.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .