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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (9 April) . . Page.. 747 ..

Debate resumed from 11 December 1996, on motion by Ms Horodny, as amended:

That this Assembly calls on the Government to:

(1) immediately withdraw its call for expressions of interest for the development of block 4 section 41 Griffith (the Manuka carpark); and

(2) undertake a study, with full public consultation, of options for the future of the Manuka carpark that best meets the needs and concerns of Manuka traders, the users of Manuka shops, local residents, and traders in surrounding shopping centres, and taking into account the evaluation checksheet for major retail development applications included in the Government's Retail Policy.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.18): Mr Speaker, I have already spoken on this matter, and I seek leave to speak a second time.

Leave granted.

MR HUMPHRIES: I thank members for that. Mr Speaker, I want to indicate the Government's view about some of the proposals that are contained in this motion and to ask the Assembly to not pass the motion in this form today, because I believe that it is appropriate for the processes put in train already to be allowed to come forward, to produce an answer to the problem that has been posed for Manuka and then to assess that particular result on its merits at that point in time.

I want to emphasise to members that this is a process which is very far from having a conclusion at this point in time. What, in fact, the Government has done up to this point in time has been only to have an unusual process of public consultation at an early point in the proposal built into this particular process and to follow that with an assessment by an assessment panel of the five expressions of interest which have been put forward, and which members of the public have seen, because they were publicly displayed at Manuka for a period of time before Christmas.

At the point where that concludes - and that conclusion is imminent - in a sense, then the existing public consultation mechanisms which are built into our Land Act will come into operation; that is, a preliminary assessment under the Land Act. If necessary - I do not believe that it is necessary - the processes to vary the Territory Plan will also come into effect. Both of those processes contain extensive mechanisms for public consultation on the proposals concerned. That is a suitable process to engage in at the point where we, the community, know who it is or what it is that is putting forward a proposal for the development of the car park at section 41.

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