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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (28 May) . . Page.. 770 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Chief Minister that she understands the importance of that ecosystem and has taken it into account. Instead, we just heard that rural residential development is the way to go. There are lots of other environmental implications in rural residential development, but they are more general ones.

I was also concerned to see that the rural task force was not supportive of rural residential development, particularly on productive rural land. In the public briefing I asked one of the bureaucrats there whether this was seen to be productive rural land and the bureaucrat said that she could not answer that question. So, there is another large question mark there. Apparently, we still want rural residential development even though we have not decided how productive that land could be.

The third issue of grave concern is the draft heritage citation for Hall. At the public meeting I went to in Hall the presentation given by the person who was expert in the heritage citation explained that, in fact, the National Trust is interested in the landscape aspect of it in the heritage classification as well, which, obviously, has huge implications for any development around Hall. Once again, my concern is: Why are we saying that we want rural residential development before this has been understood and determined and we have decided whether this is one of those things that, as a society, we value enough for the heritage value to give it special classification? Obviously, as a society, we do value heritage and want to treasure it and conserve it.

Another issue of concern to me is the lack of Assembly processes. Mrs Carnell said, "We said that we always wanted rural residential development; it is our policy". The Government is a minority government and I do not recall that being debated here. Obviously, the opportunity is here today to hear what people think about rural residential development, but we have not had that debate here and it is very disrespectful to the Assembly that this issue has been pursued so aggressively by this Government before we have had an opportunity to discuss it. I would like to have been able to discuss it after these other processes had been completed; but we are going to see it debated tonight and voted on and, no doubt, if the numbers are there, we will be told then by the Government that it has the numbers. Once again, that is a quite unacceptable process, for the reasons I have already outlined. If you actually wanted to know that you had an informed decision made in this place, you would wait for these other investigations to be completed.

Another concern about this rural residential development is that it is opposed by most of the people who live in Hall - 90 per cent, according to a survey. It is also of concern to the National Capital Authority. I note that it is clear that rural residential development contradicts a long-held planning principle for Canberra that there should be a distinct boundary between the urban and rural areas to maintain the unique bushland and rural setting around Canberra. If rural residential development is allowed in the ACT, the boundary between the urban and rural areas will blur because rural residential development is, in essence, just a lower density of urban sprawl. So we find this flying in the face of that process and consideration as well.

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