Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (6 September) . . Page.. 2895 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

We are talking about the administration of planning under Mr Smyth, and I have to say that, if you were to go back and have a look at the administration of planning under Mr Humphries, you would see that it was a step down-it was really much worse. Or you could go back further, Mr Corbell, before you were here-I am pleased he is coming in because I would hate to lambaste Mr Wood while he is not here-to the time when Mr Wood administered planning and you would realise that that was a step down as well. You could instead take it right down to the pits, when Mr Kaine was administering the planning system-and it is a pity he is not here, but I hope he is listening-and realise just how awful it can get.

I think it is important for us to recognise that there has been significant improvement in the administration of planning. I want to distinguish between administration on the one hand and policy issues on the other hand, because on many occasions I have stood in this very spot and lambasted Mr Smyth for his policies. The change of use charge, the betterment charge, to which you have referred, is one of those issues.

So there are philosophical differences, and I think we have to recognise the difference between philosophy on one hand and administration of the planning system on the other hand. Sometimes, of course, these overlap. I think that Mr Corbell, in building his case, has deliberately made them overlap even further than would normally be the case. Mr Corbell talks about a litany: I think his language was a litany of mistakes, of bad planning and of poor developments. He used language to that effect, if those were not the exact words. I have to say, Mr Speaker, that the evidence then provided by Mr Corbell was about issues on which he had a difference of opinion with Mr Smyth. I think that is a critical issue.

Kinlyside is one of those examples and Griffith is yet another example that he cited. I will go through these. The federal golf course is yet another example that he cited. In fact these were not decisions made by Mr Smyth. These were decisions of the Assembly, and the Assembly made it very clear that it has a different philosophical position from the Liberal Party and from Mr Smyth on some of these issues, at least. I will separate Griffith from that, but it certainly applies to the federal golf course, and we have yet to complete the exploration of rural/residential land. I suspect that, judging by the way Mr Corbell speaks about it, I will have a different view from him on rural residential land, because I think it has an important place within our community, provided it is done properly. That will be the challenge.

Now, we have systems of monitoring this process. The standing committee on urban services has done 54 reports at last count-unless it has done another one or two during the week when I was not watching-and each of those reports considers these issues and deals with them. They do this because issues such as the one at Griffith-and I will take that as an example-require a variation of the Territory Plan. Whether Treasury does it or not is not the issue. Yes, we have an approach from the department about planning, but planning cannot be excluded from the approach in Griffith.

In fact, Mr Corbell, I would like to give a very positive example of how our public servants right across the system work together. You would be aware of the work that goes on with healthy cities. The healthy cities concept ties a whole range of departments together to get the best possible outcome, and this happens already on environmental

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .