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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3266 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

I do not want to be unkind, but you would have to say that Mr McCann might consider whether he has a slight conflict of interest between his Property Council role and his airport job. Perhaps the Property Council might think about that as well. Today, Ms Annabelle Pegrum, the chief executive of the National Capital Authority, is reported as having made a speech yesterday to the Property Council, also calling for a higher level of development in Civic.

Ms Pegrum, of course, is under a legal obligation to uphold the National Capital Plan, which provides for the maintenance of the town centres and the decentralisation of Commonwealth employment. She has no right to publicly undermine long-standing planning policies and to damage the interests of those investors in Tuggeranong. Of course, Ms Pegrum has been intimately involved in approving the development of the new town centre at the airport.

It is a very strange thing in this town that a lot of people in business complain to me about the airport's office park expansion, but you never hear them saying anything in public. There seems to be a bit of fear about offending our local version of Bob Jelly. Of course, we all know what it is like to be on the end of the usual hysterical blast from the other airport executives about how their business is vital to this town. I am here to look after Tuggeranong and I think the airport has got far too big for its boots.

What is actually going on at the airport? The first thing to look at is the privatisation of the airport by the Commonwealth a few years ago. I assume the buyers are eternally grateful to the then Finance Minister, John Fahey, because they got a great deal. They did not buy the airport. They bought a land bank that they can happily play with for years.

We have been complete mugs in just sitting back and watching the development of the town centre at the airport. The conditions under which the airport was purchased from the Commonwealth clearly contained no impediments to land use so, while we thought they were buying an airport, they knew they were buying a massive development opportunity. The conditions allow commercial offices, retail space, light industrial space, a hotel and a childcare centre. They may even be able to build a casino, and they would be paying no levy for the change of land use.

Members will recall the Labor Party's objection to the decision of the previous government to locate CTEC at the airport. My colleague Mr Corbell spoke strongly against that at the time. It was a very bizarre decision by the previous government, which still reflects badly on all those involved. Current projections for the airport are that we will have by the end of next year some 70,000 square metres of commercial space. To put it starkly, that is more than Tuggeranong has now. It simply cannot be allowed. It is time to blow the whistle.

The Y plan is the basis of our infrastructure investments. The town centres provide economic activity that underpins these public investments. A town centre at the airport undermines the very fundamentals of our planning system. We cannot afford to allow this anomaly to develop further.

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