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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3370 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

It is true, however, that the current zoning of the golf course as restricted access recreation would allow a hotel, motel or guesthouse where they are ancillary to the predominant recreational use of the land. But I seriously doubt that the development of 140 serviced apartments in a boutique hotel, which I read in one of the club's documents, could be accepted as being consistent with the use of the site as a golf course.

Is the club expecting us to believe that all occupants of the apartments will be staying there only because they want to play golf? Is the golf club intending to put a requirement on visitors to the club that they must own golf clubs? It just appears that the golf club is continuing to pursue a speculative development opportunity to raise funds for its irrigation upgrade rather than asking the users of the golf course to pay.

It is true that the club could just put in a development application for these serviced apartments tomorrow and have it considered by PALM without the Assembly being involved, but I have no doubt that residents will challenge this development application by every means possible under the land act, and there is no guarantee that the club would be successful. By passing this motion the Assembly would be effectively endorsing the club's earlier proposal for townhouse development, whereas what I think the Assembly should be doing is indicating to the club that it does not want this land developed.

I believe that funding for the golf course's new water supply system should come from the users of the golf course rather than be subsidised by the ACT community as a whole through the loss of the public benefit associated with this open space. By its nature, the sport of golf has a significant impact on the environment relative to other sports due to the large area of land it takes up and the need for high levels of watering and horticultural maintenance.

It should be the responsibility of the club itself to reduce the environmental impacts of its own activities. I am happy to support the club's effort to reduce its water use and set up water recycling systems, but I still believe that this should be at the club's expense, not the community's. If the government wants to directly assist the club in this endeavour, then it should do so in a direct and transparent way, as it does with other sporting clubs and taking account of other competing priorities for government assistance.

The Assembly should not be assisting the club by allowing it to make a windfall profit on this development, which I believe the majority of people in the area do not want and which goes against good planning principles.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Care) (12:05): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak after listening to the debate by a number of other members. But the debate is not new. Certainly one of the things that have been important is the choice that needs to be made here, and I think it has made succinctly; there is no choice, as Ms Tucker points out, to have no development on that particular site, as I see it. That may indeed work out to be the case. That is not what has been put by Mr Kaine here today and it is certainly not what has been put to me by the club, which suggests that it is determined to proceed with an as of right development in terms of a motel/conference-style complex associated with its lease.

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