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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4870 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

We have been told that strategic planning will now become part of the Chief Minister's Department. What result will we get when we allow the Chief Minister's Department to take care of strategic planning? When we did not have a professional planner from our city under the responsibility of the Chief Planner what result did we get? Mr Berry and his colleagues, rightly, with the Greens, and Mr Osborne and me, rejected the so-called strategic plan - I think that is an acceptable way to describe it without reflecting on the Assembly's vote. It was inadequate.

As the administrators take over, we can expect broad planning considerations to give way to short-term gains. I am going to give you an example of how my fears have been realised. There is a series of planning proposals for a road to link Gungahlin with Belconnen and Gungahlin with the city. The planners have set out a series of options. They have gone to the community, and a consultation process is taking place to ensure that we get the best possible way. While this is happening, the administrators are bulldozing the road through.

Ms McRae: It is not through the Chief Planner. DUS is doing the consultation, and it is a private company. Get your facts right.

MR MOORE: Ms McRae says that it is not about the Chief Planner. Of course it is about having a chief planner. It is about having somebody oversighting planning in the Territory. If indeed we have had a failure of planning, and if indeed we have had a failure of the Chief Planner up until now, there may well be a reason for this. The reason may well be that he was never empowered enough. This was something that I objected to - I did not win - when we put the Land (Planning and Environment) Act through in 1991. I said that you had disempowered the Planning Authority by making sure that the Chief Planner's budgetary processes went through the department. I was not heeded then. Probably I will not be heeded now. Things will not go from good to better as Ms McRae wants and expects. They will go from bad to worse.

Mouat Street is now being prepared for - what is the word I want? - - -

Mr Berry: Ask your adviser.

MR MOORE: Mr Berry interjects, "Ask your adviser". Very clever, Mr Berry! It is very easy for you, because you have never needed an adviser, because you have never had to deal with something complicated, because nobody has ever brought it to you, because they realise that you would not understand it.

A proposal to extend Ginninderra Drive was dealt with in the department not in the planning context of all roads but in the context of the duplication - that is the word I was looking for - of Mouat Street. What reason were we given? The duplication of Mouat Street is going to cost only $3m, give or take a little; whereas the extension of Ginninderra Drive or one of the other options is going to cost $9m. That is true; but it is a very narrow, short-term view of what is going to happen. It does not take into account public transport strategies. It does not take into account the full range of alternative routes that are available and out for community consultation at the moment. In fact, it undermines the whole process. It does not take into account the overall picture. There is no-one with power and responsibility to oversee what the Chief Planner is doing.

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