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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3681 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

after that trial period, I think in 1997, we reversed that and got rid of the moratorium and restriction on shopping centre hours.

Something does have to be done for small suburban shopping centres. I think Dave was there and we went through a fairly laborious process in which a lot of potential plans were put up. There were about four for Macgregor. They were good sensible urban infills, with some residential development, provision for a shop or so, and provision for the doctor's surgery to stay there. The planners were open to all sorts of ideas. I thought that was a very practical way of doing it.

I must commend PALM. PALM is always the meat in the sandwich. It always attracts a lot of criticism. I think the officers of PALM and the people there did a wonderful job in trying to extract from the community what they wanted and facilitating discussion. I commend the officers there. I have been critical of PALM in the past, and I will be again probably, but I think they were trying their best in that process.

I have been to a couple of other meetings, Mr Speaker. I went to Jamison not all that long ago. I do not think Dave was there the time I went. He might have been there on a couple of other occasions. There were a couple of comrades from the Labor Party there who are not in this Assembly. They apologised to me later, and said, "Look, that meeting was a bit over the top. We are not that anti-development. Some of those people are over the top." I told them I did not think the people were over the top.

I thought it was one of the best meetings I had been to. It was a big meeting, attended by 250 people, virtually all of whom were very much in favour of the residential development proposed around Jamison. They had some very sensible ideas on what else should happen, including things like not putting a connection road with Belconnen Way within about four or five metres of the nets at the tennis court. I would remind Ms Tucker about the western route in terms of being about 70 metres or so from the dormitories of the AIS. Anyway, the PALM officers graciously said they would not do that. They accepted the will of the meeting there, and I thank them for that. It was a very good meeting in terms of what should happen. I was delighted that the majority of the people there were very keen to see sensible residential development around the group centre at Jamison.

You cannot get away from the facts, Mr Speaker. Over the last 20 years or so many of our local suburban shopping centres have been dying or have died, as, sadly, is the case of my suburb. It is important, I think, that we have sensible infill, sensible planning, which will enable residential development where appropriate. I do not think it is something we can defer indefinitely.

I am amazed at the Greens for their hypocrisy in terms of wanting sustainable development, yet effectively pushing everyone out into greenfield sites, with all the problems that are associated with that in terms of transport, and voting against or rejecting every sensible bit of residential development around local shopping centres. I do not think this should be delayed any further, Mr Speaker.

I commend my colleague the Urban Services Minister and his department for what I think has been good, sensible and sensitive discussion with the community. The groups who go out-I know they are basically the same people-are very competent people, and

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