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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 3231 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

education and training facilities and, of course, religious facilities for the community. This is a very valuable all-embracing community program.

Mr Speaker, while the government is stalling on this project they are denying the people of the Brindabella electorate a wide range of services that are planned to be on offer. This is simply not good enough and demonstrates typical Labor government prevarication.

Why has the government stalled on this project? This begs the question: is the government deliberately not making a decision on the value of the land or is it simply unable to be decisive on such planning and land management issues? Is this a cynical pricing exercise or is it just bureaucratic indecision? The community is frustrated with this stalling and support the Christian City Church in their plight. Groups such as the Tuggeranong Community Council have expressed their concern to me and they urge the government to make a decision on the value of the land to allow the Christian City Church to begin developing these services for both their own use and for the good of the community.

I support Mr Cornwell's motion. I deeply criticise Mr Corbell's amendment as being merely a load of meaningless padding. It is important that we move quickly to get to grips with the ACT community's aged-care program. I would urge the government to move quickly to sort out these pricing issues and to make decisions which are going to benefit our aged care.

Ms Tucker's amendments to Mr Corbell's proposed amendment agreed to.

MR STEFANIAK (11.02): Mr Speaker, I will make some brief comments on Mr Cornwell's motion and on Mr Corbell's amendment, as amended. I think it is painfully obvious that the ACT is going to see a dramatic increase in the number of aged persons. Every western society is experiencing that and we are no different here. In fact, I have seen figures that indicate that by 2025 the number of persons over 65 will probably double. The number is certainly going to go up a lot. There will be more and more demands for APUs and other appropriate accommodation for aged persons.

Mr Pratt spoke of a proposal in his electorate. There are a number of potential sites and proposals in relation to our electorate of Ginninderra. One site I have some knowledge of is the proposed development of part of the Belconnen golf course. Obviously golfers have concerns about some supposed improvements to the existing 18 holes. I went to a very well-attended meeting back in June at which the developer spoke about making some improvement to the golf course which were part and parcel of his proposal for an aged complex. He certainly took on board the suggestions, the comments and indeed the fears in relation to the golf course. People were particularly keen to save several greens and I think that was very much achieved.

But I do not think there were too many people there who did not realise and accept that holes 19 to 27 were very much surplus to requirements, were an absolute drain on the club and the club's future viability, and had no real other recreational use. Indeed, yesterday we heard the government's comments about the use of water and, of course, golf courses take a lot of water, be it normal or even brown water. With that in mind, it

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