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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4626 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

The Commonwealth have not signed on to this report, of course. It goes on to say:

The commissioning of this research by the Commonwealth would provide a clear and unequivocal demonstration of its ongoing commitment to the future of Canberra as the nation's capital.

In other words, if John Howard came clean and told us how many jobs he was going to cut in Canberra, that would somehow amount to an unequivocal demonstration of his ongoing commitment to the future of Canberra. Perhaps it would, but that is not the ongoing commitment we were hoping for.

Mr Smith, in explaining why he was not going to sign on to this report, said that he could not be associated with it because it has not gone through the process of consultation with government departments. He went on to say that it would probably have to go to Cabinet because there were so many things in it which were going to cost the Commonwealth money. He said he would rather that it did not happen. You cannot bring down a strategic plan which talks about the importance of fostering a relationship with the national government, when the first thing you do is say, "We do not care if the national government is not with us. We are ploughing ahead anyway". It is fundamental to the importance of this document that the Commonwealth be signed on from the beginning; that it be genuinely based on a consensus.

Mr Speaker, there are some other curiosities in this report that I should refer to. One of the objectives I referred to earlier is the continued development of Canberra in the form of separate towns. Each of those towns is meant to have its own employment opportunities as well as commercial opportunities. I would have thought a strategic plan, if it were a serious plan, would make some genuine attempt to talk about how we were going to go about progressing that aim, with all the benefits of improved amenity for the residents, relieving pressure on road systems, making public transport more accessible to people and supporting business in town centres. I would have thought a strategic plan would have made some steps towards that, but this plan does not. This strategic plan makes this interesting observation:

... there is now more employment at the city's urban `core', whose buildings in the infrastructure are ageing and require significant upgrading or replacement.

Is that not an opportunity to say, "If you are going to spend lots of money on upgrading or replacing buildings, why do we not put them somewhere which will better achieve the objectives of our Territory Plan"? Yet they have not done it. They have not contemplated it. It is not there. (Extension of time granted)

Mr Speaker, yet another curiosity and a concern for me in this report is its dealing with the road system. The report talks in these terms:

... Canberra's past reliance on road systems aimed simply at satisfying ever-increasing demand for private travel is no longer appropriate.

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