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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4076 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I am sure that all members remember the Gungahlin Town Centre consultation - one of the best consultations carried out in Canberra. The community did say that they preferred a village-style town centre, and they were listened to. They were not enthusiastic about the mall-style developments that we so often see popping up.

My motion, therefore, calls for a moratorium on further retail expansion, including the Manuka proposal, until such a strategic plan is in place and we have a better idea of the real need for retail space in Canberra now and in the future. As part of this strategic plan, there must be a social plan. Such a plan would provide a detailed study of the demographics of Canberra's population and an assessment of their social needs. The planning of our shopping centres can then be undertaken in a way that best responds to those needs. Shopping centres are not just places where people spend money; they perform an important social function as meeting places for a range of people and as places where a range of community services can be located.

In relation to Manuka, there seems to have been very little assessment of how this proposal meets the social needs of residents who use Manuka. The whole project has been driven by the desire by Woolworths to expand its supermarket space. I note that the Minister has not even allowed time for his new southside LAPACs to comment on the Manuka proposal. Also, the Minister has publicly stated that he believes that opposition to the proposal is diminishing. Perhaps people are just suffering from protest fatigue, although I do not think so, from the number of phone calls I have received in my office since yesterday. Perhaps they are scared of receiving legal threats from the developer as well.

I am bringing forward this motion in this particular form because I want the Assembly to consider the Manuka development in the broader context of the need for a retail strategy for Canberra. In recent times, there has been a rush of proposals to expand the retail space in Canberra: Belconnen Mall expanded a couple of years ago; Tuggeranong Hyperdome has received approval for an expansion; Woden Plaza has recently announced that it is proceeding with its proposed expansion; the Canberra Centre, as I said, has just gone through a process of public consultation on its expansion plans; and we also have the Manuka proposal. At the same time, Canberra's economy has been relatively static because of the Howard cuts. It is, therefore, obvious that these shopping centre expansions are being done not to meet increasing market demand, but to boost individual shopping centres' share of the total Canberra retail market.

Shopping mall managers acknowledge that their catchment areas overlap to a large extent because Canberra is really too small to support four - and, soon, five - large shopping malls. So, we are seeing a battle between the shopping malls for the retail dollar. But no account has been taken of the casualties amongst the small businesses in the local centres. Let me read to you from the evaluation of the preliminary assessment:

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