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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 2 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 413 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
that respond to the fundamental need to present planning and to ensure that planning is in the public interest.
Mr Humphries: What does Jacqui Rees think of this?
MR CORBELL: Mr Humphries, I know what you think of Ms Rees. We might share the same view on one or two occasions.
Mrs Dunne makes the comment that this is all about state planning. Let us go to the other extreme, Mr Speaker. I commend to Mrs Dunne a book called Expectations of a better world-planning Australian communities, a 50th anniversary publication of the Royal Australian Planning Institute, now the Planning Institute of Australia. It talks about how town planning in Australia came about. It says:
As cities grew, land within walking or riding distances of the places of employment and commerce was at a premium. On tiny allotments tiny houses jostled each other and factories-factories which poisoned the earth, the air and the water. In the absence of sewerage or even nightcart, minuscule back yards became flooded cesspits. Disease was rife, infant mortality appalling, life expectancy brief.
The coming of rail allowed those of means to move to the suburbs, to live away from the stench of the inner city. But the inner cities remained the commercial and industrial centres, the places where money was to be made. Even the rich could not escape the disease.
And so a profession was born: town planning. Planning to overcome the worst impacts of the collection of large groups of people into towns and cities to work and live and play. Planning to improve the quality of life for all. Planning to bring efficiency to city operations, health to residents, rewarding lifestyles, social dignity, and sustainable development.
I am not for a moment attempting to suggest that the conditions of Canberra this year are anywhere near the conditions of the original cities of Australia in the 19th century. But I am seeking to draw to the attention of members that that quote from that book highlights fundamentally why the state, why governments, why the public, because that is what governments are, need to assert a primary role in the planning of our cities, for the benefit of all, for a healthy city, for an efficient city, for a sustainable city, and for a just city. Those are exactly the components that underpin this government's commitment to planning and this government's commitment to the extensive planning reform agenda that we have undertaken.
Moving to some of the specific points raised by Mrs Dunne in her speech, she raised first of all the point that we are resuming state control of planning and land management. I do not know whether Mrs Dunne ever noticed, but the territory has always been responsible for planning in the city. Town planning is a government responsibility and we are not resuming anything. We are doing what we have always done. It is just that we happen to believe that it can be done in a way which is more focused on sustainable and just outcomes than that which was produced by the Liberal Party in government.
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