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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4090 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

No, he has reduced the amount of retail space available in small shops that are going to be in the centre. The people have talked at great length at public meetings and around the place about the concept of a mall that took everybody in and kept them in that corner of Manuka and did not let them go anywhere else. What has the proponent done? He has changed the entry and exit points. He has changed the alignment of the centre, saying, "Yes, fair cop; if you do not want people just to come in here, they can move about as they please". He has addressed the notion of how to go to Palmerston Lane, and so on.

We heard that Palmerston Lane was an absolute nightmare. This proponent has delivered the money, at the very least, which will then move into ideas and solutions. It will be fascinating to see what we do with those skips and all that rubbish. I do not know what the solution is going to be - perhaps a series of holes or something amazing - because, no matter what, people have rubbish to dispose of in Palmerston Lane. But the $2m is there. The proponent has not, in any way, shirked that responsibility that came with the proposal. We have heard about the whole traffic problem and the movement of the traffic. It is a nightmare; there is no question of it. What has the proponent done? He has said, "The trucks are a problem. Docking is a problem. We will be putting it all underground". The movement around Franklin Street and Manuka generally is a problem. He has dealt with traffic engineers. He has dealt with the problem and put forward further solutions. The challenge will be in the long run to ensure that the solutions that are being offered are sensible solutions and do, in fact, yield the required result.

What I find most pleasing about this is that there is no shirking of the most serious problem of all. There is no way that this proponent, even with the Government's answer to it, shirks the real issue. The real issue, and the one that makes everybody a little reluctant to say just a big yes, is the effect that this development will have on Griffith, Narrabundah and Red Hill, and the surrounding shops. It is a reality. Do we find the proponent trying to fudge it? No. Do we find the Government trying to fudge it? No. We are all looking this problem in the face, straight on, and saying, "Yes, this proposal may well have an effect". We are trying to second-guess. We do not know how much the population will grow. We do not know how much of the supermarket shopping being lost at Manuka at the moment will come back to it. We do not know how much the shopping process at Manuka will actually drive people back to Red Hill and Deakin. But on best advice - advice which is not being fudged, which is not being covered over - this project will have an effect on those shopping centres, and in some cases a serious effect.

The challenge, then, is that, when government gives approval to this proposal, government stares us in the face and actually does something in terms of dealing with it. That is where the second part of Ms Tucker's motion and the amendment that the Minister has incorporated into the motion put the challenge to the Assembly and to the Government. Perhaps a retail strategy or a social plan will yield some results. Perhaps some stringent laws that say, "If you live in Red Hill, you have to shop in Red Hill" would be the answer. Who knows? It is not an easy problem. It is something that time itself has done to ravage the process of shopping in all our centres. I have seen it right through Belconnen. It is sometimes the product of having a big supermarket,

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