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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (13 June) . . Page.. 1657 ..

Report No 72

MR HIRD (4.31): Mr Deputy Speaker, I present the following report:

I move:

I seek leave to have my speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave not granted.

MR HIRD: Mr Deputy Speaker, I am very pleased today to table this report. It has been one of the most complex inquiries my committee has undertaken, and it really serves to show just how difficult planning issues can be in the territory. Some of the factors making it so complex are listed in the conclusion of the report, and it is worth while mentioning a few of them.

This is the first inquiry into a draft variation where my committee was asked to examine not one but two draft variations for the same piece of land, namely the Kippax Group Centre. This odd situation arose because draft variation 158 affects all of Canberra's 17 group centres, whereas draft variation 163 applies to only the Kippax Group Centre. Our report makes plain that the committee does not like this way of going about things. We actually recommend that PALM amend draft variation 158 so that the particular concerns of Kippax are treated within the overall context of treating all 17 group centres. This is set out in the first paragraph of the recommendations on page 1 of this report.

Another reason why the inquiry was so complex was that we had to consider the value of the very wide expansion of the master planning process which PALM wants to use. Members will see in our report that we are suggesting important qualifications to PALM's use of the master planning processes applying to group centres, and our detailed suggestions are set out in recommendation 3. In particular, we were concerned about PALM's proposal to permit an eight-storey development at a group centre like Jamieson simply on the basis of a master plan for the area. We do not like this suggestion.

One of the reasons why we do not like it is that it excludes the elected members of this place from an active role in the decision-making process about such an important change to our group centres. Hence, we recommend at recommendation 5 that proposals for multi-storey development in group centres must come before this committee by way of the normal draft variation process. This will ensure that both the community and elected members are able to examine the proposal in a careful way.

Mr Deputy Speaker, another reason why this inquiry was complex bears on an interpretation of one of our standing orders. I will not go into this matter in detail here because it was mentioned during our last sittings; but I do want to say, Mr Deputy

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