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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2480 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

Yes, it does have some draconian impacts now, but we do not know what it will look like in the future. Yes, it is true to say that the government has set in train certain initiatives which they say are designed to protect the so-called garden city which it values and which it says is under threat-but I am not sure the threat ever existed.

What concerns me deeply is the evidence offered by the trust for its alleged outcome. Its evidence for this outcome is flimsy in the extreme. It would be laughable if it were not serious. The thing that has saved the garden suburbs of O'Connor, Ainslie, Braddon, Turner, Reid, Red Hill, Yarralumla, Forrest and Griffith is draft variation 192, which attempts to impose arbitrary limitations on dual and triple occupancies.

The most dubious proposition is draft variation 200, which has set alarm bells going through most of Canberra business and most of the major institutions, because of its lack of definition and its uncertainty-uncertainty about how it fits into the other strategic documents being bandied around in the name of new planning in this town.

Nowhere in this do we see any views about people. What we have with this report card and the views of the National Trust is a "do not touch" ideology which says that, at any cost-no matter how unacceptable the cost is-you keep the buildings and you do not worry about the people. I am saying, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the cost of draft variation 200 will be borne by the people who can least afford it.

I am glad Ms Tucker has spoken about affordable housing, because I would like to talk about affordable housing and the impact draft variation 200 will have on it. Draft variation 200 will mean that people on lower incomes will be conscripted to the outer edges of our city. Members of the Planning and Environment Committee had a discussion with members of the property council the other day, where this position was put very strongly.

It is not socially equitable that the poor are conscripted to the edges of our city so that the centre remains a museum-that we force these people to the outer fringes, where they spend their small amount of disposable income on petrol to get to work, instead of buying food.

Draft variation 200 is not about sensible preservation. It is not about balancing human wants and human needs with our history. My concern about draft variation 200 is that it is not about people. The bland assertion by the National Trust about the six suburbs comprising a significant 20th century planning achievement is just plain hyperbole. Parts of the suburbs are great, others are so-so, and others are just plain bad.

Let us take Turner as an example. It is singularly lacking in architectural distinction. Most of its houses are small, inefficient, and of no aesthetic merit. They usually have small windows, are badly oriented and badly insulated. They are extremely expensive for the people who live in them-often people on low incomes-to run.

The story is a legend. When I first came to Canberra, university students used to complain about how cold and bitter it was to live in rental housing in O'Connor and Turner. It is now 25 years later, and another generation of university students tell my children the same story-about how difficult it is to live through a Canberra winter, in places like Turner and O'Connor, because of the bad design of the houses.

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