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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (9 April) . . Page.. 752 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

who are very concerned about the impact of this sort of development; it is the people in the surrounding areas as well. I do not see that having the option for this Assembly to look at one of the five, as Ms McRae is suggesting, is changing the process in any meaningful way. I hope that we do indeed see that flexibility, Mr Humphries, if people do not like it.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.34): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you. Mr Speaker, I move the following amendment to Ms McRae's amendments:

Proposed amendment to paragraph (2), omit "the Government's", substitute "an".

The amendment is a very simple amendment. It takes out from Ms McRae's paragraph (2) the words "the Government's analysis and evaluation" and substitutes, in effect, "an analysis and evaluation". The reason for that amendment, Mr Speaker, is to ensure that material which was presented to the assessment panel and which was considered by those putting forward expressions of interest to be commercial-in-confidence will not be put on the table in a way which would embarrass those people putting it forward. For example, with the expressions of interest, companies were asked to indicate what their financial capacity was to deliver the proposals that were being put forward, and they had to table information about their financial position, their resources and so on. It is not necessary to consider that from the point of view of the community's views about what should happen to section 41; but it is very much a part of that process. We want to take those elements out. But, essentially, what we will have to do is be able to put on the table an analysis and evaluation of each of the proposals that were put forward for section 41.

Let me respond, Mr Speaker, to one thing which Ms Tucker said and which I think is a matter of concern. She likened this process to the referendum in Tasmania, where people were asked, not "Do you want a dam or not?", but "Which dam do you want?". There is a very big difference between that and this. A preliminary assessment under the Land Act does not say, "You are going to have a development at section 41, but you get to comment on how it gets shaped". That is not what it does. A preliminary assessment under the Land Act is a very extensive process, which does entail consideration of all the issues that Ms Tucker referred to - the impact on neighbouring centres, size and scale, and capacity to affect the amenity of surrounding householders. All those issues have to be taken into account, and a perfectly possible outcome of that process is that a proposal of this kind or any kind should not proceed. That is a potential outcome of that process.

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