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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4085 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: No; it is more than disagreement. That is not true. I accept disagreement, and I live with disagreement every day of my life in the job that I do in this place; but some of the tactics used by those opponents in this particular instance were particularly repugnant.

I had cases, quite often, where I was asked to rapidly respond to a particular list of questions or demands - to explain my position on this and to explain that. On one occasion, I was asked to respond within 48 hours. I set my staff quickly to do so, in order not to give any sense of unwillingness to cooperate. I produced the answer within the 48 hours required, and a press release was issued, indicating that the Government had failed to respond to the concerns raised by the community. I might say that a particularly prominent Independent candidate for the Legislative Assembly elections also repeated that untruth in the course of remarks made the same day. I have been to public meetings where, I have to say, I think the amount of time given to either the Government or the proponent of this development to explain their position was derisory, contributed to a sense of panic and emotionally heightened the misinformation available to people in a quite reprehensible way.

So, Mr Speaker, I come before the Assembly today with a clear conscience, if you like, in recommending to it that it should approve this development. We have examined this issue extremely thoroughly. It is clearly the right development for Manuka, in my view. In a design sense, it is extremely sympathetic with the rest of Manuka and addresses Manuka's needs in a very good way. I have not seen many developments which I consider to so successfully achieve that outcome.

Mr Moore: What about the amendment?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Moore reminds me that I have an amendment before the house. For the reasons that I have given, I move:

Omit all words after "this Assembly" and substitute the words "whilst approving the proposed development as described in the preliminary assessment by Morris Consolidated Pty Ltd, calls on the Government to institute a moratorium on the further expansion, except very minor expansion, of retail space in town and group centres, not including Gungahlin, until a strategic plan and social plan for the Australian Capital Territory are developed which include strategies to guide the future development of appropriate retail facilities in Canberra.".

Mr Speaker, the amendment affirms the Assembly's view that the proposal is worthy of support and should be approved; but it also accedes to the request for a moratorium. I might very quickly say that this should not cover those matters in the pipeline already - already with public proposals on the table - nor would it affect, in my view, proposals for petrol retailing, because some of those proposals are still being worked through in the aftermath of the arrival of people like Gull and Woolworths Plus in the ACT. However, the Government accepts the moratorium concept inherent in the motion as it now stands and saves that in the amendment which has been put before the house.

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