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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (11 November) . . Page.. 3911 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: That is a very good question, Mrs Littlewood. Thank you for that. I must admit that when Mr Wood stood up last week to champion the cause of the ACT's green spaces I felt a little bit sheepish. I thought, "Here is Mr Wood, the great champion of Canberra's green spaces, the man who never let a bit of green space slip between his fingers, defending those green spaces and attacking me for even thinking about allowing some area of the Lake Tuggeranong foreshore to become residential, accommodation or something else that is not green space". Suitably chastened, I went away to check on Mr Whitecross's record of defending urban open space in this city - - -

Mr Whitecross: Mr Whitecross's or Mr Wood's?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Wood's. I beg your pardon. It is so easy to confuse you two. It is so easy for Mr Wood to make that comment. It is so easy for Mr Wood to appear to be the champion of those open spaces. He asked me last week, "Will you protect such valued parkland?". Mr Speaker, I have discovered that at least six variations to the Territory Plan were initiated by Mr Wood to convert community land of one sort or another to residential land. I will list them. In February 1994 the land use for the Gleneagles golf course was varied from rural restricted access recreation to residential at the initiation of Planning Minister Bill Wood. I would run away, too, if I were you, Mr Berry. In March 1994 the land use for the Tuggeranong Homestead was varied from community access to residential access. Who can forget that?

Ms McRae: And who approved it? Who was on the Planning Committee?

MR HUMPHRIES: Not me.

Ms McRae: And who was part of it?

MR HUMPHRIES: Not me. We did not argue against many of these conversions. They were actually quite good ideas.

Ms McRae: No, but you are now.

MR HUMPHRIES: Not at all. Ms McRae fails to understand. We are not arguing that these are wrong at all. Many of them are a quite good idea. But we have never pretended, as Mr Wood has, that we should not be converting rural, recreational or open green space into residential. Mr Wood did.

Ms McRae: Where is the five-star hotel?

MR HUMPHRIES: What were you going to do on Tuggeranong Homestead?

Ms McRae: Where is the five-star hotel?

MR HUMPHRIES: What were your plans for Tuggeranong Homestead? What was that going to be - a kiddies' playground perhaps, or an open sculpture park? You were going to put a hotel on it, were you not? You wanted to put a hotel there.

Ms McRae: But where is it?

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