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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (12 March) . . Page.. 963 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

other side, so that it can reserve blocks 15 and 16 for a new supermarket to compete with the existing one.

It is not at all clear that the community is clamouring for another supermarket-it is certainly not in the way it has been clamouring for a permanent library-but the government seems to hold the view that it needs one and that the only viable place to put it is on the site where the community wants its library.

PALM has been working on a plan that it believes will deliver what the community wants in the best possible way, but it remains to be seen whether the government and the community can agree on this. Indeed, while the community is probably not yet aware of the specifics of what PALM is planning, it is deeply suspicious of the agenda and has been seeking the intervention of the minister, as their political representative, to intervene and override PALM's efforts to offer them something different from what they have been asking for and to designate the site and get the planning and construction under way.

I do not want the government to get me wrong here. I was certainly pleased to hear about the planning work PALM has been doing in its endeavours to meet the community's needs for a library and other facilities. I am glad it has not been sitting on its hands. It may well be that the proposals PALM is working on have considerable merit and that the community will see the merits of PALM's suggestions.

But, again, I draw attention to the significant differences between the community's and the government's conceptions of what is a good thing for the future planning of Kippax. And I draw attention to the government's responsibility to mediate between these two conceptions, but ultimately to serve the community's interests, and to be very careful of an approach that tells the community that the government's understanding of the community's needs is better than their own.

I wish the government well in working through these issues with the Kippax community and delivering to them a good permanent library and community centre-very soon, I hope-a community-friendly group centre and sound planning for future development.

I support this motion as a spur for the government to redress the longstanding problems with Kippax. I understand that the community were prepared to relinquish their call for master planning today for reasons to do with members not present in the chamber. But I am concerned about relinquishing that call, because I do not have confidence, and neither does the community, that what is going to happen instead will satisfy a real engagement with the community-a process that leaves the community feeling respected and listened to, rather than one that tells them, "This is what we have come up with. We will consult on it, but it is what we are doing."For many people in the community, the master planning process has presented a model which will give them a greater guarantee and assurance that within the processes their views will be taken on board.

I want to put on the record my concerns about amending the motion so that it just asks the minister to table the timetable for further planning consultation for the Kippax group centre. The fundamental assumption in that is that the consultation is going to work and that it is going to be genuine. That may be the case, and I hope it is, but people in the

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