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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2162 ..

MR STEFANIAK: There are a number of productivity measures, Mr Speaker. I do not have the latest offer with me, Ms McRae; but I wonder whether the union would particularly want all of that tabled at this stage, because it is for discussion and negotiation. Certainly, on the table - these things have been bandied about and are probably common knowledge, so I am not affecting any negotiations - there are such things as pupil-free days and whether teachers would do work and professional development courses in stand-down periods, thus freeing up pupil-free days. That is a significant productivity gain. Those are the sorts of things, I think, where we can make some real progress.

Planning - Consultation
MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I have a question to Mr Humphries as Minister for Planning. Mr Humphries, at the last election, your Government prided itself on its record on consultation and, I guess, management issues. Rather than worry about the latter, I will ask you a question to do with consultation. Did you approve the three changes of lease - to the Police Youth Club in Turner, to the MBA site, and to Northbourne House on Northbourne Avenue - when each of those developments was rejected in its proposed form by LAPAC No. 1, or whichever LAPAC it was? If it is the case that they rejected it, your consultation process through LAPAC is just a sham. You will accept what they are suggesting when they agree with you; but, when they do not, you just override them and do what you were intending to do in the first place.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I think Mr Moore is talking about three examples of consultation. One was the Police-Citizens Youth Club, the other was Northbourne House, and what was the third one?

Mr Moore: The one on the MBA site.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, all I can say is what I have said before to Mr Moore, which is that consultation does not necessarily imply that agreement is reached between the parties that consult. On both MBA House and Northbourne House, for example, I brought all the members of the LAPAC concerned into this building and sat them down around a table, and for an hour and a half I talked to them about those two sites. At the end of the day, we did not agree on the issues that they were concerned about at those sites. I certainly consulted with them about that. I took great pains to analyse what it was that they were saying to me. I was quite anxious to be able to agree with them, because I realise that the process of trialling these LAPACs depends on being able to use them as an effective tool for getting feedback from the community and taking notice of it. So, every occasion when I am unable to agree with a LAPAC is, in a sense, an indicator of a problem with the system. I just do not want there to be a problem with the system. However, Mr Speaker, try as I did, I could not agree with them on that particular issue. I think it is fair to say that we came away from that meeting with a better understanding on the part of the LAPAC about the Government's reasons for not agreeing with their point of view. As far as Turner is concerned, I have not personally been involved in making a decision about that. That was made by my delegate. Clearly, the delegate took into account the views of the LAPAC. I do not know why there was not agreement with the LAPAC; but I have no doubt at all that the officers in the Planning Authority who made the decision did take into account the view of the LAPAC.

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