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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3950 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I learnt, I believe, as Minister, that that is simply not the way to go. I believe that the former Government set in place the preferred way, which is that you go out, first of all, to the community and say, "What do you want?". That was the process we followed with the Gungahlin Town Centre. We went out with a blank sheet of paper. We said, "We have no ideas about this. You tell us what you want". That process was worked through.

Mr Moore: That is what you did in Watson, too. I am not disagreeing with the process, but it is what you did in Watson and that went into turmoil.

MR WOOD: What we did in Watson was fine and the result was fine. That was the process for the Gungahlin Town Centre and it delivered a product that is clearly the one that the community wants. On a different scale, I recall that the then Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, went out to Oaks Estate - that was a community in existence, unlike the Gungahlin Town Centre - and said to them, "What do you want? How do you want your suburb to be at some time in the future?". That is the procedure that ACT Housing should have adopted.

Ainslie now is getting on in years. Clearly, there is need for some improvement to the public housing in that area. It has to be done; but the people there, both Housing Trust tenants and non-Housing Trust tenants, needed the first go at what was to be done. After extensive consultation, the planners back in ACT Housing could then have done their job and drawn up their pretty plans. This was not done in the correct way and, therefore, it is back to the drawing board, as it should be.

MS TUCKER (11.54): Mr Speaker, I am addressing Ms Reilly's amendment. Unfortunately, I will not be able to support this amendment, just as I will not be able to support Mr Moore's motion, because it does not contain the fundamental assurance that the people of Ainslie explicitly sought as a basis on which to go forward, and that is the withdrawal of the options document. I have spoken to Mr Moore about the issue and he has said that he is happy to include in any related matters in his terms of reference a number of the issues that we have raised. I have also pointed out to him, and he agrees, that the issues related to public housing are in the terms of reference of the Social Policy Committee, so those would not be included. Maybe there is some possibility of some kind of joint committee work on that issue at some stage.

MR MOORE (11.55): Mr Speaker, I will be speaking to the motion, so I believe I close the debate.

MR SPEAKER: If that is your wish, yes, unless anybody else wishes to contribute.

MR MOORE: It is, yes. I was just checking to make sure that nobody else wished to speak.

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