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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3126 ..

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (11.39): Mr Speaker, I wish to set the record straight on a number of matters about the Federal Golf Club's proposal and about the approach taken by the Government. I think that the allegations by Mr Corbell about the integrity of the Territory Plan being affected were ill-informed and simply wrong. Likewise, I think that his comments about a windfall gain were naive. The whole community stands to gain from this development through the payment of the 75 per cent change-of-use charge and the level of payment is non-negotiable, as Mr Corbell knows only too well, being prescribed by the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991, which, I have to say, was confirmed on 2 July this year and supported by Labor.

Mr Osborne raised many points. The first was that the traffic issues need to be addressed. I say quite clearly here that the Government has no intention of ever allowing Brereton Street to be linked through Red Hill. That is not appropriate. It would actually involve a variation to the National Capital Plan and would affect the hills, ridges and buffer zoning, and I do not believe that it will ever happen.

Mr Osborne spoke about the Red Hill Nature Reserve and said that it is an important part of the open space that we have. Indeed, it is a very important part of the open space. At stake here is some 9.22 hectares of environmentally significant land. This morning I received a letter from the club saying that, if the Assembly approves variation to the Territory Plan No. 94, they will take whatever action is necessary to facilitate the requirement to transfer the land to the ACT. They would actually surrender the land to the Government and we would include it by variation to the Territory Plan into the Red Hill Nature Reserve, making it permanently, for all time, for all Canberrans, part of the urban open space that we have here.

Mr Speaker, I think it is important that people understand that the current lease would, in fact, allow the club to build, for instance, a hotel on that site. They could build a hotel with a hardstanding car park for another 300 cars. That would be allowable under their lease and under the planning regime; so we have to talk about the reality of what the club can currently do and what they are asking to do, which I think is something of far less impact.

Mr Corbell had his standard opening: "The Assembly and the committee got it wrong. I am from the Labor Party and we have got it right". But Mr Corbell forgets that what we had here was a very clear, very open, very honest process. Mr Osborne acknowledged that both sides had put their cases well. There are two sides to this argument. There are always two sides to these arguments, if not three or four. But Mr Corbell says, "Because I am not getting what I want, everybody else is wrong".

What are we going through here today, Mr Speaker? We are going through what is prescribed by the Territory Plan. This is the process and the club has the right to seek to vary what it can do with the lease that it has and to vary what it can do with the land that it has. Mr Corbell says, "They should not keep bringing this forward. This is the third time". Goodness gracious me! How many times did it take to get the abolition of slavery, for instance, through the British Parliament last century? Dozens of times. Are we going to have a precedent that you can try only once?

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