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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 14 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

Certainly, the committee did not feel empowered to say yes to the variation without that information and without that further work. We anticipate that it can be done fairly rapidly. As I said before, it is quite clear which of the shopping and retail outlets are to be affected by this variation. It is not a complex task to be in touch with them. We feel that, once this extra work is done, we will be in a much better position to assess the impact of this variation and be confident that the community does not feel outraged by changes that are likely to happen very close to their residences and very much at the heart of where a lot of community life happens.

MS HORODNY (11.54): Mr Speaker, I too would urge the Minister to look again at this variation. The committee was in agreement that there needs to be flexibility on the issue of what happens with some of our local shops. As previous speakers have said, there are some localities where it would be very difficult to maintain or increase any viability in those shopping centres. So, it makes sense for us to improve the flexibility to allow those modifications to be made.

We were horrified that the shop proprietors and indeed the residents living around those small shopping centres had not been consulted and had not been asked for their opinion on this issue, when it is one that, obviously, at least some residents and some shop owners and managers would have concerns about in the future. I guess that that would be creating problems, when what we need to do is actually look at all those issues now and ensure that we are going forward on this issue in the best possible way.

The other thing that concerned us was that on many of the questions that we asked we were referred to the guidelines, which are still being developed. I understand that they will be available in about a month's time. But until we have answers to some of those questions and some of our concerns, which will be available in those guidelines, it is very difficult for us to approve this variation. Concurring with what other members have said, I think we need to ensure that this work is done on the guidelines particularly and that that is presented back to the committee for our consideration.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR HIRD: As chair, I present Report No. 19 of 1996 of the Standing Committee on Scrutiny of Bills and Subordinate Legislation. I seek leave to make a brief statement.

Leave granted.

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, Report No. 19 of 1996, which I have just presented, was circulated when the parliament was not sitting, on 24 December 1996, pursuant to the resolution of appointment of 9 March 1995. I commend the report to the parliament.

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