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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4422 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

I think the question that residents in the Territory should be asking is: Why does this Government want control over the hills and ridges in the Territory? Why do they want control over some other areas of Commonwealth land in the Territory? If they are going to manage them in the same way as the National Capital Authority manages them or oversees them, there is really not much point in changing. There can be point in changing only if they want to realise that asset in some way or use it in some way.

Maybe we will see the lines of housing development creep further up the hill. Perhaps they will go right over the top of the hill. I see the Chief Minister nodding, so perhaps that is confirmation. Maybe we will not see ridges in the ACT anymore. Maybe we will not see that wonderful characteristic of Canberra but will have a straight unbroken line of housing rolling over one hill, down into the valley and up over the next hill. Maybe that is why they are saying they want the land.

I think every person in this Territory is entitled to be very suspicious indeed of this Government's motives in wanting to gain control over Territory land. Once again, it seems to be driven entirely by the issue of development. It seems to be driven entirely by what sort of development we can have in the Territory, with no concepts of the national capital plan, no concept of a national capital and the significance that this sort of city has compared to other cities in Australia. We are a unique city, and we are a unique city because of the way we are planned and the way we are managed. We perform a unique role in the line of cities all around Australia. We play a unique role. We play an outstanding role. We are a model city. We should work to improve that model and make it a better model. We should not seek to try to turn our city into everyone else's city. We should not seek to manage ourselves in the way other cities are managed. The way other cities are managed, on the whole, does not produce the same sorts of good planning results that we have seen in Canberra. Why should we change it?

This Government has really failed when it comes to cooperating. My colleague Ms McRae outlined some of those points earlier in the debate. She made the point about the futsal stadium. Here we have a Government that was prepared to move in with the bulldozers on an area of national capital land and lay down the only outdoor-indoor futsal stadium. That was just brilliant! That is the sort of logic we have from this Government. It is the only outdoor facility for an indoor game. That was absolutely brilliant!

Mr Speaker, it did not stop there. There were numerous other examples. One is the flagpole standard the Chief Minister erected outside the futsal slab. Those flagpoles were not meant to go there. It was only when the Labor Opposition raised the issue with the NCA that we discovered that the NCA were very unhappy with the approach that this Government had taken on that issue. The Government basically ignored the requirements that the NCA had in relation to the erection of flagpoles and other things on national capital land on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. It is not difficult for the ACT Government to go and negotiate with the NCA about putting up something as simple as a flagpole, but they could not even do that.

Mr Speaker, Mr Humphries made some point in the debate about the Labor Party trying to have it both ways on this issue; that on the one hand we were trying to suggest that the Government was incompetent in relation to its dealings with the Federal Government, and on the other hand it was doing secret deals. I want to clarify that point. The concern

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