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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 1089 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

resource potential of stormwater and waste water to reduce the need for a potable water supply, and the section on design for reduced resource and energy consumption. The problem is that the rhetoric does not fit the reality. You just have to look at what is happening in suburbs such as Braddon, Turner, O'Connor and Kingston to see that the objectives are not being met.

We are seeing wholesale changes to these areas that, if not stopped, will create a monoculture of two and three-storey blocks of flats across large areas of inner Canberra. Other inner suburbs, such as Ainslie and Yarralumla, are being transformed by dual occupancies and whole new houses being crammed onto blocks. I am not saying that there should never be any change to these areas. The issue is how well this redevelopment is managed and whether we are seeing improved amenity for residents from these changes.

The feedback I am getting from residents of these areas is that their amenity is being detrimentally affected. That would indicate to me that the performance measures that are being used to assess applications for these types of development are not adequately meeting the objectives. It is, of course, also the case that many of the performance measures relating to multiunit redevelopments can be overridden through the use of section master plans. There is some public consultation in the development of these section master plans, but the minister approves these plans and there is no statutory means for the affected residents to object. As part of the review of the residential policies, I think there needs to be a close examination of the adequacy of these section master plans and the process by which they are developed.

The revision of existing policies for residential development is therefore critical to ensuring that we get back on track on creating a high-quality, sustainable and living city. Unfortunately, I do not think that there has been enough debate on these new policies. My office has had a quick look at the draft variation, which we received only yesterday, and compared it with the draft released in October. There appears to be very little change between the two. A few paragraphs have been added to the explanatory statement of the plan variation, but the substantive sections of these documents appear to be virtually unchanged.

That is very interesting. Is the minister seriously claiming that all the comments on the original draft were positive? That has to be the implication. We can see virtually no change in the draft. What is the process there, which is another thing I find of concern? Where is Mr Smyth? I wish he were here, because I would like answers to that. We do not know what comments were made. We know from the feedback we are getting in this place that the residents are not happy, that they are very unhappy, but there has been no change and we cannot see what the comments were. That is not good community consultation.

Mrs Burke is not here, either. She waxed lyrical about community consultation. The process has been appalling. Mrs Burke should be crossing the floor on this motion, according to what she said in her speech. You cannot claim in any way that this process has been legitimate consultation. Mr Corbell's motion is seeking further public consultation on the proposals before the formal draft variation is released and has interim effect. Such public consultation should happen anyway once the draft variation is released. So the critical point in the motion is that it does not allow the variation to come

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