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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2545 ..

MR MOORE (4.16): Mr Speaker, I present Report No. 30 of the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment, entitled "Draft Variation No. 64 to the Territory Plan: B2 Commercial Land Use Policies - Local Centres (Part B2D)", together with a copy of extracts of the minutes of proceedings. This report was provided to the Speaker for circulation on Friday, 8 August 1997, pursuant to the resolution of appointment. I move:

That the report be noted.

This brings to a final stage the move by the Government to try to enhance local centres by providing more flexibility in what can be achieved in a local centre. That flexibility is based on the Government's retail policy in Striking a Balance as well as our own committee report on retail policy, "Further Retail Policy Measures to Maintain Diversity in the ACT Retail Market".

It seems to me that the Government is to be congratulated on these measures, and it is the unanimous view of the committee that the extension of possibilities in the way that it has been done with reference to these small commercial centres will give them a further chance for better viability. It is something that I know the Minister is concerned about. We have differences of opinion sometimes about how we should go about that, but in this area at least it is another step which I think is positive. Clearly, that is the unanimous view of the committee.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.18): I just want to make a brief comment on this matter. I welcome the committee's recommendation that the variation proceed. Members will note from the report that there was an initial reluctance by the committee to endorse the variation without further ventilation of the guidelines among affected people, particularly in local centres. The Government undertook a further round of public consultation. I want to note, particularly in light of the inquiry which the Social Policy Committee is conducting at the moment about public consultation, that additional public consultation took place. It cost about $8,000 to consult further with the people in local centres who, it was alleged or at least suggested, might not have been reached in the initial round of consultation. That resulted in almost no new comments coming forward in the process, and the recommendations then proceeded as originally suggested.

Sometimes we can be overzealous about the amount of consultation we need to take on board. Some of the consultation exercises we engage in in the Territory can be quite elaborate and very expensive but result in very little in the way of public comment. The reason sometimes is not necessarily that people are not interested or that people do not have a desire to express a view but that the sheer volume of issues on which they are asked to comment is so enormous that it is very difficult to determine, in the blur of issues being put forward for public consultation all the time, what issues interest them.

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