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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 4 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 895 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The issue of neighbourhood planning was a response to changes to the urban environment. It was in that context that I thought we had neighbourhood plans. I did not think we had neighbourhood plans to have a review of all land use. The key point in this debate is that we are not looking at the Hungarian club in the centre of Narrabundah; we are looking at some land which has a land use which we are not attempting to change but which, through an anomaly in the Territory Plan, has-

Mr Corbell: You are attempting to change it.

MS TUCKER: We are not trying to turn it into residential use. It is still going to be for rural land use. An anomaly in the Territory Plan has created this situation which we are trying to deal with. If Mr Corbell wants to say now that we are going to review all land use in the territory, we can have that debate.

Amendment agreed to.

MRS DUNNE (11.47): Mr Speaker, I rise to conclude the debate. I will try to be brief. This debate has taken longer than I had anticipated. Mr Corbell says that my motion is emotive and simplistic and that my belief is that Christine Murray and Alan Swan have a right to a residence. To reinforce what has been said by me, by Ms Tucker and by Ms Dundas, we are not anticipating the outcome. I made it quite clear to Mr Swan and Ms Murray when they came to see me that I could not give an undertaking on the outcome. This is the beginning of a process. To use the word that Mr Corbell used here yesterday about planning, this process is about collaboration. We are collaborating with all the people who have an interest in this matter.

The Commonwealth has an interest, the territory has an interest, the Swans have an interest, and the people who live in Narrabundah and whose residences, I point out to the minister, do not immediately abut on this block of land have an interest. That is what this process is about. Mr Swan and Ms Murray know quite well that there will be a preliminary assessment over this matter. They know about that and will take it in their stride. Let us get some things straight here. The minister has been trying to make a case that that process is impossible, that this is public land. This land is not public land. Christine Murray has a lease over this land. It is an agistment lease and it confers property rights on her. We are here defending her property rights. The public does not have access to an agistment lease.

We need to get a few things straight here. The minister said that I need to know a little bit about the rural policy. I happen to be very proud of my role in the development of the rural policy. I was advising the now Leader of the Opposition when the rural policy task force was set up. I had a watching brief and was there taking an interesting when the now Leader of the Opposition introduced and successfully passed the rural policy. I know how the rural policy works. Leases in Symonston are for 20 years and a 20-year lease would be acceptable to the Murrays. Nowhere at any stage did anyone say that it would be for 99 years.

Mr Hargreaves did a manful job of filling his allocated time talking about this motion, but I have to make a few points about that. He said that this is motion is not about children and people; it is about planning. I have not been sitting in my current position

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