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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2202 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

I do not think anyone would. I think it is, again, very regrettable that because of the lateness of this Bill the people of Gungahlin, the residents most affected by it, are denied the opportunity for input at this late but very vital stage of the planning of their town centre. That has occurred because the Bill was so late. I think that is a very regrettable factor as well. I do have some concerns about the Bill, and I have discussed them with Mr Wood. I acknowledge his view that the Bill is very much as he would have drafted it.

There are a couple of matters which I think we need to watch very carefully. One of those matters is that the Gungahlin Development Authority, in effect, issues leases and retains the revenue from those leases. That concerns me as a matter of principle, and I would have liked a further opportunity to consult upon it. As a point of principle, I believe that all of the land in this Territory is an asset of all of the people of this Territory and does not belong to any particular authority or any particular department. Therefore, I have concerns about the revenue from land sales at Gungahlin being retained by this authority. I recognise that those revenues are to be put to use in the development of roads, infrastructure and so on for the town centre, but this is a very unusual way of proceeding in the ACT and is, in fact, a form of hypothecation of a certain part of the Territory's revenue - the Territory's revenue, not Gungahlin's revenue. It is a matter which I think we should have had an opportunity to consider much more closely.

It is a fact that, to this point in the development of Gungahlin, the costs that have been involved in terms of putting in roads, sewerage, electricity, land developments, schools, community centres, playing fields and all the rest of it have been borne by the Territory as a whole through our general revenue and expenditure as a Territory. There is a point of principle there which does give me reason to pause. I think the people of the Territory, as a matter of principle, by and large, are entitled to get a return on their asset, rather than see that return hypothecated to one particular group. If the return is to the Territory as a whole, it is then a matter for Government policy and Government priority how that revenue is allocated. It may be to the Gungahlin Town Centre or elsewhere; it may be to our health system. I think that is a point of principle that we really do not have the opportunity to go into in any depth.

Another matter that concerns me is that I think the Government is at grave risk of exposing itself to charges of gross hypocrisy here because of the nature of the development or the timing of the development that is apparently to occur at the Gungahlin Town Centre. It is a fact that we have seen supermarkets opened at Palmerston and Ngunnawal, and I have no doubt that there are plans for other little supermarkets as the other suburbs are further developed. But under the town centre plan the site which is called 1A, which is the first site to be developed by the Gungahlin Development Authority, is - guess what? - a supermarket in a town centre. I fear that this issue has not been well thought through by the Government, and they could well find themselves very much at odds with their own very flawed policy on the treatment of supermarkets in town centres.

I regret to say that I believe that this Bill brought forward by Mr De Domenico has all the hallmarks of very hasty drafting and very ill-thought-out objectives. I think I have raised some serious concerns about it. I do not believe that we have the time today to properly and fully debate those concerns. Nevertheless, as I have said before, I feel that,

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