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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2746 ..

MRS CROSS (continuing):

In answer to Ms Tucker's comment earlier about whether we read the submissions, yes, we did read the submissions. This committee is a responsible committee. It looked at this process in its entirety, and it burnt the midnight oil on many occasions in order to do its job properly.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (11.28): Mr Speaker, the government clearly will not be supporting the motion proposed by Mrs Dunne today. I would like to put on the record the government's position in relation to this variation and put to rest, first and foremost, some of the myths that have emerged about it.

We heard from Mrs Dunne earlier in the debate that there were lots of submissions from the community. Mrs Dunne said that they were all opposed to the variation and she then used that to justify an argument that we needed more flexible and less tough planning rules that facilitated a greater level of development. I do not know whether she actually went and looked at the submissions.

Mrs Dunne: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am not quite sure where the minister was during my speech, but I did not at any stage say that we needed to have more flexibility for more development.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order, Mrs Dunne.

MR CORBELL: Mrs Dunne stood up in this place and said that we needed to recognise that dual occupancy should and can occur, that we needed to recognise other things should and can occur. Mr Speaker, if she had actually looked at the submissions, especially the submissions that came from resident organisations and community organisations, it would have been quite clear that what the submissions said was that they did not think variation 200 was tough enough, not that it was too tough and too restrictive on development. They wanted to see tougher controls on development-in particular, tougher controls on dual occupancy development and tougher controls on triple occupancy development-but not the reverse, which is what Mrs Dunne claimed in her speech.

As for my apparent unwillingness to negotiate a compromise on this issue, the situation was, in fact, quite the reverse. I spoke with Mrs Cross, Ms Dundas and Ms Tucker and sought to find a compromise. I offered a compromise to Ms Dundas and Mrs Cross. Ms Dundas said very clearly-

An incident having occurred in the gallery-

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Corbell, resume your seat. There is a disturbance in the gallery. A member of the public is in attendance with a sign and making some sort of protest. I order that person to leave the gallery forthwith, otherwise I will suspend the sitting until the person is removed. I call Mr Corbell.

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, I did offer a compromise to Ms Dundas and Mrs Cross. What was the response from Ms Dundas? She said, "We are not going to do a deal. No deal; no compromise is possible."That was Ms Dundas' response.

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