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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2130 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

is an area of particular concern, and there was the exercise at Ainslie, Mr Speaker, in which we attempted to create a vision for what Ainslie would look like in the coming decades, with varying degrees of success. Those have been indicators of other areas of Government focus in a proactive way rather than a reactive way. I have to concede that most of the work of the Government, of any government, in the area of planning will have to be reactive because that is where the bulk of the work comes through the door. That is a pretty significant kind of work of government.

Turning to progress on petrol sites, Mr Speaker, I would argue that the Government has been entirely consistent about its handling of these matters. We made it clear that we were not going to embrace the previous Government's policy - which Mr Wood rather unwisely, I thought, described as a sensible policy - of bringing in a particular trader, a particular so-called independent, on highly preferential terms.

Mr Wood: Numbers of them, actually.

MR HUMPHRIES: The previous Labor Government succeeded in bringing only one independent into town, just one.

Mr Wood: Then the government changed hands in the middle of the arrangements.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, that is not true. It brought in Burmah, I think, in 1994, and then in 1995 tried to auction a number of other sites around the Territory and failed to get any interest in any of those sites.

Mr Wood: No, that is not the case.

MR HUMPHRIES: When we came to office there were about four sites there and only now have any of the people that you lined up to build petrol station sites actually started to do so.

Mr Wood: There were tenders coming in when I was leaving government.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I have never seen these - - -

Mr Wood: I paid very careful attention to the process.

MR HUMPHRIES: I have never seen these so-called tenders, so I do not know what you are imagining, Mr Wood. They certainly were not there when I looked for them.

Mr Speaker, we take a different approach, and we make no secret about the difference in the approach that we take. Our view is that there ought to be a policy which reflects the impact of such players on the rest of the retail market in the ACT. The arrival of an offer from Woolworths late last year was a trigger for the Government to consider that policy. I know that the policy of Mr Berry and Mr Wood would be to say, "Sure, come on in. We do not care what happens to the rest of the ACT retail market". They have shown pretty well total disregard for the impact on other players in the retail market, Mr Speaker. We have been prepared to make a much more careful approach to that kind of issue, and that is why - - -

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