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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3942 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

on the only way to make that occur. They are not the masters of consultation and community depth-sounding, and nobody else has any expertise or any capacity to explore. We intended to consult long and hard about the proposals we have on the table. I reject the idea that, merely because the proposals were well developed and detailed, they were therefore somehow inappropriate.

I welcome the inquiry. I would say to Mr Moore, as the chair of the inquiry, that the issues that have been put forward by Ms Tucker in paragraph (1) of her amendment ought to be considered in the terms of that inquiry. I think that would be reasonable. Obviously, the state of public housing in Ainslie is integral to any proposals to change the suburb. It has to be borne in mind and therefore considered very carefully by the Planning and Environment Committee. I am not sure that it generally considers public housing issues, but on this occasion it should, including issues to do with the relocation of housing tenants and the proportion of public housing in a suburb like Ainslie.

I welcome examination of the consultation process. The Government had fairly open plans about that, so if there is direction that the P and E Committee can give on this issue I would very much welcome that. In fact, I would very much welcome some further Assembly ownership of this process because I think it is important that we try to reach consensus on how we should handle these sorts of changes. I simply note that the strategic development options paper ought to remain as a proposal, as an idea, that should sit on the table for people to consider. Obviously, if they do not like it, and the indications are that they do not, then something else has to be devised; but, again, we should not be selling people the myth that no change is an option. Frankly, Mr Speaker, I do not think that it is.

MS McRAE (11.20): Mr Speaker, I thought I had better put on the record why Labor will not support Ms Tucker's amendment simply as it is put, although not necessarily the spirit of it. The way that the amendment is put is calling on the Government to do something. An Assembly committee of inquiry cannot call on the Government to do something. I was not at the meeting, but I am told that the public sentiment was very strong. I understand what is driving the Greens to put forward this amendment. Labor will put forward a further amendment to put into the inquiry the spirit of what Ms Tucker is trying to encapsulate.

I was very interested to hear the Minister for Planning outline his ideas and the motivation for the changes to Ainslie. What has been underestimated and not given sufficient airing - I would like to hear the Minister for Housing speak on this area - is the depth of feeling about public housing and the amount of public housing in Ainslie. I take it that this plan was never intended to be affecting that or to be involved in any way in either reducing or increasing the level of public housing; that it was entirely an issue in regard to future planning and changes within Ainslie.

The problem is that the debate about public housing has been raging simultaneously. The idea that a reduction of public housing may well happen is alive, and it may well happen. Because the two issues have intersected, I can see why it is so important that the issues that have been raised by the community be at least considered. In a committee of inquiry, we could not possibly ignore those issues, even though departmentally, within the Government, under ministerial control, they come under different hats and were never

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