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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4474 ..

Mr Corbell's amendment agreed to.

Clause 75, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 76 agreed to.

Dictionary agreed to.

Title.

MRS DUNNE (8.31): We have come to a portentous time, Mr Speaker, when the majority of this place has agreed to pass the Planning and Land Bill. At this time, I want to place on record one last time the concerns of the opposition about some of the aspects of the Planning and Land Bill, and about its implications for land and land development.

I think it is sad that, after the excesses of the 1980s and 1990s, when we had WA Inc, Pyramid, the State Bank in South Australia and all of the Kirner, Cain, Bannon and Burke fiascos that we saw in the last wave of Labor governance, this Labor government should be creating the possibility of its own ACT Inc and all that could go wrong with it. We should be warned but, at the same time, I wish the government well in its enterprise.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Planning and Minister for Industrial Relations) (8.32): I thank Mrs Dunne for her graciousness. I am sure that we will see her continued support for these important reforms.

This is an important moment. We are about to pass this legislation. This is legislation that I have now advocated and on which I have worked for over three years. This is perhaps the most significant piece of legislation that I, as a member of this place, have sought to introduce and to have passed. It is obviously an important moment for me as a member of this place. More importantly, Mr Speaker, it is an important moment in the development of the governance structures of planning, land administration and land development activity in the territory.

It was always envisaged, at the time that self-government was granted to the ACT, that the territory would have a planning authority-not just a person performing the role of the planning authority, but an authority itself, an institution responsible for the good planning and land administration of the territory. It has always been of great concern to me that successive governments, both Labor and Liberal, have failed to deliver on that most important of structures envisaged at the time that self-government was granted to the territory. Tonight, I am very pleased to say that this Assembly is going to establish just such an institution.

We have heard much about the debate. I and other members have contributed to this debate tonight, and the many preceding it as well. However, the one point I want to make in closing this debate this evening is this: these are institutions that I hope will weather and thrive into the future. We all have our own points of agreement and disagreement about planning in this city. We have a community and we have citizens who feel strongly

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