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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (6 September) . . Page.. 2891 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

I have taken the opportunity to move this resolution this morning because of the continuing and growing unease in the Canberra community about this government's administration of planning and land management in the ACT. In particular, I am concerned about the growing unease and, indeed, downright dismay of many people in the community about the approach of the current minister for planning when it comes to the administration of the territory's most valuable asset.

The attitude, approach and record of this government with regard to planning started badly. That, Mr Speaker, can be summed up in two words: Hall/Kinlyside.

Mr Moore: That is three words.

MR CORBELL: It is two words, Mr Moore. "Hall/Kinlyside" is two words. From the very beginning this government's approach to land and planning was under a cloud. It started at the very beginning of this minister's tenure as minister for planning.

The Hall/Kinlyside land deal, Mr Speaker, was nothing short of a shonky deal, done behind closed doors, to grant large areas of the ACT's residential land exclusively to an individual developer for a form of development never previously tried in the ACT. It was done secretly, it was done without consultation, and it was done as part of a mate's deal.

Since that time, Mr Speaker, this minister's record has in no way improved. Indeed, over the past 18 months, we have seen no less than six major occasions where the minister's attempt to implement planning issues in this Assembly have been overwhelmingly rejected.

These have included the attempt to introduce dual occupancy development into the heritage-listed old Red Hill area. Dual occupancy development is a contentious matter at the best of times, but he proposed to introduce such a development into a heritage-listed area of the ACT, one which has direct links with the work of Walter Burley Griffin and Sir John Sulman, and which is recognised nationally and internationally as a unique precinct. These were all matters that this minister ignored when he pushed forward his agenda. He pushed it forward regardless of community opinion: he pushed it forward regardless of expert advice.

What had to happen, Mr Speaker? We had to have a resolution in this place requiring the minister to change his policy direction. But the minister's record goes back much further than that. There was, of course, his gung-ho attempt to introduce 50 per cent change of use charge, an attempt that he said was all about creating incentive, but in fact would have involved a massive untargeted subsidy to the development industry, to the detriment of the ACT community. The subsidy would have done nothing to encourage sustainable, high-quality development, and would have been paid whether the development was an appalling design, a basic design that only just scraped through the planning laws, or a top-quality design that actually dealt with issues like energy efficiency.

Regardless of how good the design was, the developers were going to get a subsidy. That means it is untargeted, and that is an inappropriate way to use change of use charge. Despite this fact, Mr Speaker, the minister charged ahead. The minister talks a lot about creating high-quality design, but the reality is that, structurally, his government does very

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