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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 589 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

On a number of occasions since this community brief came out I have raised the issue of the need to ensure equity of housing. If there is going to be housing and residential development there, which there obviously is, we need to ensure that there is affordable housing and public housing on that site as well. The access and equity issue was one that was clearly supported by the community through the consultation process.

There was also a very strong position taken by the community on the need to ensure that the environment was protected in this development. In fact, the idea was that the development should demonstrate environmental best practice, and the principle of ecological sustainability must underpin the development of the site. The unique environmental setting on the foreshores of Lake Burley Griffin and adjacent to the Jerrabomberra wetlands must be recognised. Once again, this is a very strong and agreed perspective from the community.

Since this brief came out I have had to keep reminding the Government of this. I do get reassurances from the members of the authority that they are respecting this, but I think that already we are seeing a watering down, if you like, of the possibility of making this absolutely best practice, a development that would be a showcase for all the world, because we right now do see that infrastructure is going to be put in in a fairly conventional manner. If it was best practice it would be a magnet for people from around the world. It would be a place for us to sell our environmental technology and our intellectual capital that we have in this city about environmental technology and best practice, because it is obviously what everyone around the world is interested in pursuing. They want to see how we can live more lightly on the planet. It has become an urgent challenge for many cities around the world.

The Kingston foreshore development is not just an opportunity to make something work for the people who live in this city. The Kingston foreshore is an opportunity to make money by selling technology and intellectual capital. We see the Chief Minister and members going over to China to sell our environmental expertise and so on. People would be coming to us if we did this properly. As I said, we are seeing fairly conventional infrastructure being planned for this development at this point and we are being reassured that everything that comes after will be fantastic and best practice; but in fact we should be starting at this point and ensuring that, for example, our electricity, water, sewerage and so on, the infrastructure for that, will be quite different from conventional approaches.

The other strong issue that came up in the consultation was heritage - that the development must strongly reflect the cultural significance of the sight. The powerhouse and bulk store buildings must be retained with industrial character. I think this is relevant to the debate about high-rise and how far we could move from this initial sentiment that came from the community. If you do want to keep intact the general ambience of the site and the character of the cultural significance, then it is clearly going to be inconsistent to have these huge high-rise buildings.

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