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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (9 April) . . Page.. 749 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

in accordance with Australian standards. Dust and particles are a more real source of pollution than is noise. Of course, good housekeeping practice, such as dust suppression through watering and so on, will be used to minimise this problem as the development proceeds, if it does. Longer-term air pollution is not foreseen as a problem with this development.

There has been some concern raised about the possible garbage and loading facilities at the occasional care centre. The location of the truck loading bays and wet and dry waste storage close to the playground fence is an issue which the successful proponent will have to address carefully at the design and siting stage. PALM will ensure, as part of the assessment process, that these facilities do not impact on the occasional care centre. There was also concern expressed about the need for temporary car parking during the construction phase. That is a matter which was required to be addressed in the expressions of interest process and, indeed, I believe, has been addressed by most or all of the parties putting forward expressions of interest. I can assure members that there will be provision for temporary car parking that will adequately address the needs of users of the Manuka centre.

There are requirements for both informal consultation during the disclosure responses, as has been done with the public display of the five proposals, and formal consultation. I have already referred to that. The formal consultation will commence after one of the schemes has been selected, and there will be extensive statutory consultation through the preliminary assessment. I see the amendment which has been circulated by Ms McRae. I accept that there is an amount of public consultation which can also occur on the analysis which the Government has done of the five expressions of interest. I will be suggesting some modification of the second paragraph of Ms McRae's amendment to ensure that matters that were considered commercial-in-confidence and that were disclosed in the analysis process by the assessment panel are not disclosed, to the detriment of the parties making the expressions of interest. I have asked for some work to be done on that now, and I hope that that will come down very soon.

Mr Speaker, let me say that it is important that we put a concrete proposal on the table at this point in time. I do not understand any reason why that should not happen. I have, at the request of the Greens, not proceeded to make a decision or announce any decision about the outcome of the expressions of interest process, because I respected the right of the Assembly to debate this motion before that happened; but I believe that it would be appropriate for the Assembly - and, I would suggest, pursuant to the amendments Ms McRae has put forward - to allow a successful expression of interest to be put on the table, to allow the community to see what that is and what it actually proposes, and to debate whether that meets the needs of the people of Manuka and the people who use Manuka, and then allow us to consider that through the normal processes provided for in the Land Act and, indeed, as the amendment suggests, that the Assembly itself might impose in that process. That would be a good way of resolving this issue. I think that to say that there should be no further consideration of what has happened up to date would be very foolish and a very unfortunate response to what has been a fairly full public consultation about those proposals.

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