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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2481 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

Is this what we are perpetuating? What gives Turner its character is its layout and the trees planted there. There is nothing about the houses that has any merit at all. The layout and the trees have never been threatened. The logical conclusion of the National Trust's flawed heritage argument is moving-I fear-inexorably towards the eventual deification of monocrete.

Where is the best practice in design? Where is the best practice in sustainability? We do not see it in draft variation 200, as we commit people to larger and larger blocks with smaller houses on them. As we move away from densification, we come down to an inevitable move towards the edges.

Where is the process? We have heard about sustainability. The minister-this whole government-repeats it like a mantra. It is all through the budget-everywhere it is sustainable this and sustainable that-and yet, as an organisation, they have not come up with a convincing definition. It has been picked up as a buzz word to dignify scatty policy and thinking which, in many cases, is clearly not sustainable. Draft variation is clearly not sustainable. What we see being lauded in this National Trust exercise is a powerful argument against sustainability. If this is what the government believes is real sustainability, they have a problem, and the people of Canberra have a problem.

I feel good about what was achieved in Canberra, especially in the inner city, during the time of the Liberal government. We achieved a social environment that made the inner city a liveable city. It put heart into the city. It was not a wasteland after five o'clock. It was a city for people-for the first time, you find people in the city. It is now vibrant, cosmopolitan and people friendly. It vies comfortably with other cities of comparable size.

I turn very briefly to Red Hill, to see what draft variation 200 does to it. Planning and Land Management gave me some very beautiful maps. I will table, with permission, an extract from one of those.

Leave granted.

MRS DUNNE: I present the following paper:

Red Hill-Extract of map showing general areas subject to Draft Variation No 200.

The map shows Red Hill-not where the general area will be confined to a nice 200-metre perimeter, but it will cut a 1.4-kilometre swathe of possible dual occupancies and high development through the heart of Red Hill-from Quiros Street to Tamar Street and Mugga Way.

This is not what the National Trust wants. If the National Trust has signed up to this, it has bought a pup. If the DV 200 is an answer to anything, all I can say is that they must have asked a really stupid question.

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