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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4864 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (5.59): Mr Speaker, the Labor Party will be opposing this proposal by Mr Moore. If Ms Horodny claims that there is some inconsistency between opposing the Government's strategic plan or expressing concerns about the Government's strategic plan and supporting this legislation, then I despair a little for Ms Horodny, because the two are not in any way related. Quite frankly, it is a gigantic non sequitur. The proposals which are the subject of this legislation are proposals which have been circulating around this community and which have been discussed in this community and by Mr Moore's committee over the past year and, in the case of some of the issues, going back to 1994. I think it is a bit rich for Mr Moore to paint in this place an image of the Government rushing legislation into this house and pushing it through before Mr Moore has had time to figure out what it is about. He knows perfectly well what the legislation is about. He has been talking about it incessantly for the last year, as indeed is his proper role as a member of this parliament. I do not think it is at all fair, appropriate or honest for Mr Moore to suggest that he has not had a chance to grapple with the issues contained in this legislation.

Mr Moore's position is made somewhat more curious by the fact that he claims that the circulation of drafting instructions is a substitute for my colleague Ms McRae seeing the text of his amendments but that having the Government's response to the Stein report, having the Stein report, having the previous reports of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee and having all the debate that has gone on about what the Government proposes to do in this legislation does not provide him with sufficient background to understand the Government's amendments.

It is interesting that the main objection to this Bill he articulated when arguing why it should be referred to a committee was a policy issue which does not relate to the text of any proposal put forward by the Government in their legislation but relates to a disagreement that he has with the Government about a policy matter. That is not, on its own, a sufficient reason to be referring the matter to the Planning and Environment Standing Committee. I fail to see how he can make out his case.

The Opposition are concerned to ensure that we move forward in relation to planning in the ACT. There is no doubt that the legislation that was put through in 1991 needs some updating and some refinement. We have had plenty of public debates and public processes to lead us to the point where we are making some refinements. Notwithstanding that, I hope that there is no-one in this place who would argue that because we are making some amendments to the law the ACT would have been better off if we had not passed the law in 1991. Mr Moore may come back with some amendments next year, but I do not think they, on their own, justify us not passing this legislation today.

Mr Speaker, there are some important issues which, in our opinion, have been sufficiently debated in the community for members in this place to have formed an opinion on them and to be able to make decisions tonight. Mr Moore, in his amendments, has raised some other issues which were not the subject of that debate. We would be happy to discuss those interesting propositions in the new year and to consider what we might do with them, but some new ideas by Mr Moore are not an excuse for us not pursuing the ideas that have been the subject of public debate over the last year.

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