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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (13 December) . . Page.. 259 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

On the subject of neighbourhood plans, it is an enormously adventurous task that you undertake, Minister. It will take a vast amount of resources and people's time and good will to get this to happen. At the same time I must ask that these plans, when they become plans, remain living documents. They must not be graven in stone. They must have the capacity to grow and change with the community and the desires of the people who live in Canberra.

Whilst saying that, I think that the concept is a reasonable one. Again, I add a word of caution. You say in your speech, Minister, that you have approved a three-year program of implementing neighbourhood plans. I wonder how that sits with your announced policy for a draft variation that will put a ceiling of 5 per cent on dual occupancies for six months. I am not quite sure how that sits with the three-year rolling program.

On the subject of dual occupancies, you know that we fundamentally disagree. I do not think there will be necessarily a meeting of minds on the 5 per cent. I believe-and I will say here what I have said outside-that the solution is not a mathematical formula but appropriate guidelines that take into account a whole range of things, including-and this is not an exclusive list by any means-plot ratios, setback, the type of building, the colour of the building and the plantings that go with it. These are all the things that contribute to the garden city. A mere 5 per cent mathematical allocation will not address the issues.

I move on to the Gungahlin Drive extension. I take the point that the government sees that it has a right and an unambiguous mandate to implement its policy for the western route. I put on record that I will not resile from my commitment made during the election campaign to do everything I can to protect the amenity of the people who live in Kaleen, who will be very adversely affected by noise from a road much closer to their homes and from a road which has substantial flyovers, which on the Labor Party plan will be much closer to their homes.

Moving a little away from my own brief, I would like to add a comment about the school student transport scheme. I want to put on record in this place that its removal is a retrograde step. It is a matter of great regret to me that, although the kids in Queanbeyan get a free bus ride to school, in the ACT the children of the ACT do not get a free bus ride to school if they need it. It diminishes the choice of parents in sending their children to school. I want to put it on the record that I firmly believe in the rights of parents and children to choose what school children go to, and they should not be hindered in that by the cost.

I mention the case of one family. This is an extreme case. Three children in this family travel across two zones to get to high school. Before the introduction of free school buses, it cost them $90 per child per term. Under the current proposal put forward by the government, they will still incur a cost of $45 per child per term, or overall a cost to the family of $540 a year. That is an awful lot of ballet lessons, tennis lessons or something else they might otherwise be able to use to extend their children's capacity. Or it could be a bit of remedial reading for those who do not quite make it through the education system.

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