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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 208 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

It is with some regret that I have to bring such a motion to the Assembly, but for the past few years I have been listening to homilies from the present Planning Minister about planning for people and consultation, to the minister in his current and previous roles extolling the virtues of consultation and speaking about Labor listening, but what we have here today is a classic example of Labor refusing to listen. It has been suggested on a number of occasions by me and others that it would be a good idea if the Planning Minister sat down, with or through his officials, with the people of Gungahlin and nutted out what is essentially a pretty undignified contretemps about what the Gungahlin Town Centre should be about.

There are lots of fingers in this pie. The principal finger in the pie is the Gungahlin Development Authority, an organisation set up to develop the Gungahlin central area. I would like to draw the attention of the house to the principal object of the authority. Section 6 of the Gungahlin Development Authority Act 1996 says:

The principal object of the Authority is to ensure that the Gungahlin central area is developed in accordance with the principles and policies ... set out in the Territory Plan-

that is what we are doing-

to provide for the social and economic needs of the community.

I suppose it comes down today to one group in the community saying that their social needs are not being met. I have heard on a number of occasions the minister and the staff of the Gungahlin Development Authority putting forward very cogent arguments as to why their proposal is better than the proposal put forward by the Gungahlin community, the Gungahlin Community Council or the equality party. The process I would like to see is a meeting of the minds, which is why I have suggested to the minister that Gungahlin might be ripe for neighbourhood planning.

We have heard a lot said about Labor listening. Really, what it boils down to is that we have a situation where the people of Gungahlin have a lot to complain about because they are not being treated in the same way as other people. The minister has treated us to many sermons extolling the virtues of neighbourhood planning. He has said, quite rightly, that there is a lot to be said for neighbourhood planning. As a critic of the process, I have to admit that I have become somewhat of a convert-somewhat of a convert; I do not want the minister to take it out of context and get too carried away with the fact that I might agree with him on something.

The minister has done a lot about neighbourhood planning and it has become a badge of honour for him, but there is a lot that we also need to do. It was interesting to hear him extol during the consideration of the annual reports earlier this month the great benefits of neighbourhood planning. I will quote from the uncorrected proof Hansard, but it is reasonably accurate. He said:

But the neighbourhood plan ... has a number of objectives. It is partly aspirational, it is partly about values of the community, it is partly about what physical issues people want to see addressed in some suburbs.

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