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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3171 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

action or the wrong course of action. This is just the same with the Federal golf course development proposal. Mr Wood said, "But this is different to all those other golf courses that I approved buildings for". I would like Mr Wood to tell me the fundamental difference between putting a few houses on Federal golf course and putting a few houses on Yowani or putting a few houses on Holt. There is no difference in principle.

Mr Wood tried to differentiate in some way by saying, "In those other places nobody cared. Nobody used the piece of ground". That is very doubtful debate. I do not believe there is any essential difference between this proposal and any of the others. I do not see how the Labor Party, having for a number of years supported and even pushed these proposals, can today suddenly take a different view on the basis of taking the moral high ground.

I remind Mr Wood that he was the man who invented the infill program. Remember that? He said, "We are not going to go into greenfield development anymore. We are going to come back into the heart of town and we are going to embark on infill. We are even going to have dual occupancy". Where did that all go? If the proposal for Federal golf course is not an infill project, then can somebody tell me what it is? It is using idle land that can be put to better use. I know that some people do not agree with that, and they are entitled to their view. That is what it essentially is - using our land resources more efficiently and better rather than letting them sit idle.

I find it quite politically intriguing, Mr Speaker, to see the Labor Party standing up and championing the cause of the residents of Garran - hardly Labor Party heartland. What are they attempting to achieve here. Whom do they think they are kidding? Are the people in Garran confused? Do they really believe that the Labor Party has suddenly become their supporter in everything that they subscribe to in life? I very much doubt it.

Mr Stanhope: It is the principle.

MR KAINE: I like you very much, Jon, but I think you are on shifting sands on this issue.

I wish to address some of the issues that have been brought up so far. They are patently unconvincing. The proposition from the Labor Party and Ms Tucker is that this piece of ground is an isolated enclave relatively remote from services. I live at Conder. I am at least five times as far from the Canberra Hospital as the people living in this isolated remote enclave will be. What a lot of rubbish! Whom do Ms Tucker and the Labor Party think they are going to impress with that sort of argument? It is a specious argument. (Extension of time granted) If they are going to come forward with opposition to such a project, they should surely do it on more substantive grounds than that.

Ms Tucker says that if we are going to have an ecologically sustainable city we cannot allow this sort of development to occur. Presumably, Ms Tucker is saying that we should revert to the urban sprawl and go back to the greenfield development out there on the edge of town and that that will be more economically sustainable. I do not think

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