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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 223 ..

MS DUNDAS: If the minister is so confident with his consultation process to date, it should not be hard for him to adopt this motion. If consultation was truly working in terms of being a two-way dialogue, not a one-way dialogue, we would not have the concerns put to us in such a way. If the consultation process is working, step it up a bit, provide the information and let people tell you what it is that they want for their town centre. But I urge the minister and the government not to ignore this Assembly. We will not tolerate that. It is not what we are here to do. We are here to be part of the future of the ACT. We represent a very diverse population out there and continued attacks by this government on this parliament would be very much of concern.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Arts and Heritage and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (8.28): Ms Dundas said "these things take time"and talked about "if consultation was working". These things have taken time, and I contend that consultation has been working and continues to work.

I was the first minister who carried forward this project. The actual site that was settled on at that time has been somewhat changed, but the concepts were developed quite some time ago, and they needed to be. With large projects, as this is, a considerable lead time is necessary. There is immense danger if at subsequent times we make sudden fairly drastic variations, and this can be seen in planning areas everywhere.

This process began about 1993 or 1994 when I was planning minister and we were looking way ahead into Gungahlin. The very first consultation-strangely, perhaps, but at that stage there was not much population in Gungahlin-took place in the southside community hall where 100 people came to tell us their ideas about a town centre. Although some of these people were from Gungahlin, most were from Palmerston. These people had ideas about the sort of town centre they wanted. In that consultation and subsequently the clear message came through that "We do not want another mall, thank you. We want something different."

That is where this process began. The concept came before this Assembly and was considered by the then Standing Committee on Planning and Environment who supported it as it was developed. The Greens supported it. It wasn't Kerrie Tucker but that very nice person Lucy Horodny who signed off on the concept that is now being developed. She was happy with it. I see that my colleague, Mr Berry, supported the notion. There are a few of us oldies around who remember it.

MR SPEAKER: Enough of the "old".

MR WOOD: I am pleased that some people have a better memory than I have.

There has been a long process of discussion and consultation. I actually went out onto the site-I have forgotten the date but I still have the picture somewhere at home of my looking out over the grasslands towards where the site is now, saying, "This will be the site."We found some legless lizards on that spot, so it got shoved over a bit further.

Ms Dundas: Was that the Greens as well?

Mrs Dunne: No, it was the Liberal Party who did that. We shifted it.

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