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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (6 December) . . Page.. 3732 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

a one - in - a - thousand - year - event. But the circumstances that caused the tragedy that saw three children from a Lyons family killed do not exist any longer. That is not to say that in some bizarre set of circumstances a flash flood of some magnitude could not happen.

As a result of these circumstances, the intersection of Yamba Drive, Melrose Drive and Adelaide Avenue was changed and what we have now is quite high above the flood plane structures that allow the water to flow freely. It is wrong to say that the government does not take what we are doing seriously because when this section was added to the Territory Plan in 1993 these facts were known and were available, and the planning that went on then led to a reasonable decision.

Mr Corbell says the Labor Party will review all these sites. Ms Tucker says she places little value on the fact that it was placed on the Territory Plan in 1993. Perhaps it is another one of these examples where Bill Wood, as planning minister, got it wrong. But the planning has been done and the process has been carried out that led to other assumptions that allow, or should allow, us to develop that piece of land.

Ms Tucker said that we just opened a map, picked out sites and filled in all the open bits. That is just not true. As I have made quite clear in the press and as I have said in this place, over the last 10 years there have been five examples of where urban open space was changed for another use. Mr Speaker, we have to get our facts right in this place. Which suburb has the largest percentage of urban open space? Oddly enough it is Mawson.

Mr Corbell: It's district playing fields, you goose.

MR SMYTH: Mr Corbell interjects, "It's district playing fields, you goose." Mr Speaker, of the suburbs in Woden, Mawson has the second highest percentage of open space land use - some 20 per cent of the suburb. Only Hughes has a larger percentage, and that is 22 per cent. The Woden Valley overall has an average of about 11.4 per cent open space. Mawson's open space will not be reduced if this site is developed because the site is already zoned as residential. So again the facts have been presented out of context and in a willy - nilly way.

Another issue that has been commented on is the capacity of Hurley Street to handle traffic flows. According to what I am told by the department, Hurley Street has an average of 845 vehicles per day near Power Street and 1,380 vehicles near Mawson Drive. It is estimated that this will go up to 1,100 vehicles per day at the Power Street end and 1,600 a day at Mawson Drive. I am told that the capacity of Hurley Street is 3,000 vehicles a day. So these are roads that actually do have capacity to handle this volume of traffic. I would have to assume that when he was planning minister, Bill Wood was given the same information for inclusion in the Territory Plan as residential, because the planners actually determined it did have the ability to handle that sort of traffic.

The issue of the south - bound traffic intersection with Mawson Drive was also raised. The understanding that I have is that, by using the Austroads guides criteria, that intersection does have the capacity built into it to handle any additional traffic. It is easy to get up at public meetings and stir the pot, but if you come back to the engineers and the planners then -

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