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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4637 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

Territory Plan and what everyone has striven for in this Assembly, which is a fair cop for each of their electorates and no one centring. Canberra is not Melbourne, it is not Sydney; and, whilst many people would wish it that way, we are nowhere near having consensus or agreement that that is what should be.

This partnership idea gets worse. Some gratuitous advice is handed out to Belconnen: Belconnen's interests could work together to work for Belconnen Town Centre. Surprise, surprise; there is a group that already meets there, to which even I, as an Opposition member, am invited, and which cares deeply about the future of Belconnen. If anybody had listened when they put this plan together, we would by now have bombed the Belconnen bus shelter, as Mr Hird has been calling for for years and years, and as Mr Berry and I have, and replanned things there. But all the emphasis, of course, is on this so-called metropolitan core, and some gratuitous advice is offered to other town centres.

As if all this is not enough, we find out, after Mr Humphries has paid out good money to a consultant to do a review of the LAPACs, what does he get? He gets some gratuitous advice in here too. Do you know what Mr Humphries can now do? These LAPACs, which he has fought for and defended - he called the consultants stupid to ever deny democratic rights - are now going to be amalgamated with the community councils. What a novel idea! Whoever thought of that? Nobody in the community, nobody in the LAPACs, nobody in the community councils, nobody. Nobody said, "Please, sir, I want to work with the LAPACs". What nonsense! Community councils exist for the community, LAPACs exist for a completely different purpose, and we need a strategic plan to say, "Too bad what Mr Humphries has done in terms of his review; too bad what the community councils are there for and that they get elected and are good volunteers; we have a wonderful idea. We are going to put them together". And do you know what? We are even going to get an area manager. How terribly, terribly cute! So out at Belconnen and Tuggeranong we will all sit down and be quiet and let the metropolitan plan continue whilst we all talk to each other and make sure that no aspirations of any other town centres get dealt with because the metropolitan plan has to be fulfilled. Nobody on earth has ever spelt out why that should be.

We move from partnership to making things happen. Having spectacularly failed to keep the Commonwealth with them, we find this invitation on page 82:

In particular, the ACT Government will seek the cooperation of the Commonwealth Government in pursuing the potential to align their plans for the outsourcing of support services such as computing ...

Having failed, having spectacularly failed for two years to keep on line with the Commonwealth, now we are going to seek ways to pursue the Commonwealth. It is simply not good enough. What sort of strategic plan is it that says, "Having been unable to work with the Commonwealth, we are now going to find some different reasons to try to work with the Commonwealth."? It is just not good enough. (Extension of time granted)

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