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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2209 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

The question then was: How do we deliver? How does any government deliver those requests? Such a concept had not been tried on a comparable scale in contemporary urban Australia. We are doing something that is very different. I acknowledge that, when someone does something different, people are reticent; they sit back and say, "Listen; let us consult more and more. Let us refer things to committees". Well, we can do that. We can keep referring things to committees time and time again, or we can go ahead and do it. Okay, we may make mistakes. When you are doing something innovative, you may make a mistake; but in my view - and perhaps I am a bit too impetuous - it is better to make a mistake than to not do anything at all, because at least you can learn by the mistakes that you make. Clearly, the fact is that we are doing something new. It was more than just a planning task. We recognised that building such a centre would require special attention; thus the concept of an authority to oversee the building and management of the Gungahlin Town Centre and central area was born.

I must say, for the record, that the Gungahlin Development Authority, if this Bill passes, will be bound by all Territory laws; that means those governing planning and lease administration. The authority will need ACT Planning Authority approval for any development of the town centre or any development at all. Leases issued in the town centre will be administered by the Minister responsible for land management. The Territory will be the lessor, not the authority. I am not going to go through what I said, as reported in the Canberra Times this morning, except to say this: The Canberra Times made me two offers, either do a letter to the editor on Saturday or the story in today's paper. It did that because its editorial last week was factually flawed. It was as simple as that. The editorial in the Canberra Times was factually flawed.

Ms Follett: It did not have a photo in it either.

MR DE DOMENICO: No, it did not have a photo in it either. It was an old photo. It was one taken in 1990, just after Collingwood won their last grand final.

Mr Osborne: You reckon you do not read the papers.

MR DE DOMENICO: I read that one, Mr Osborne.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Relevance!

MR DE DOMENICO: I acknowledge your admonition, Mr Speaker. That was why that was done - the editorial was flawed. Had the person who wrote the editorial actually read the piece of legislation, he would have realised that in fact it was not a planning matter whatsoever. All the authority is doing is delivering a town centre, subject to all planning restrictions, all planning legislation and every other piece of legislation that this Territory has in line. Clearly, that is why the offer was accepted by me to get the record straight, so to speak. As I said, I acknowledge the contribution made by the former Government and by members in this debate. The Government will not be supporting Mr Moore's desire to send the Bill to a committee. I am glad that it seems that the majority of the Assembly is of that mind as well. The Government, however, will be supporting all of the amendments to be put forward by the Greens and all but one of the amendments foreshadowed by Mr Wood, and we look forward to doing that as quickly as possible.

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