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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4436 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the Land Development Agency is running a strong and successful program, one which is strongly supported by the community. I have heard, Mrs Dunne, as I move about the community, that people like the idea of getting land through a ballot. They like the idea of choosing the block of land of their choice.

Mr Speaker, the government has continued on its program of a strategic and overarching approach. For example, we have done significant work in reforming the planning framework for city west, to create a vibrant and attractive precinct linking the city with the Australian National University. We have raised the prospect of connecting this area with the lake and, again, the detailed platform that has been produced in that regard has been welcomed overwhelmingly by the community.

Mr Speaker, the government has also taken an important role in increasing the amount of residential land that is released in the ACT. Despite Mrs Dunne's bleatings, despite Mrs Dunne's criticism to the contrary, Mr Speaker, even organisations like the MBA now recognise that there is sufficient land supply to meet demand in the Canberra community. We have effectively doubled the amount of land available through greenfield and redevelopment activity, compared to that put in place by the opposition when it was in government.

We have done that-and Mrs Dunne will be interested in this, because she might understand the causal link-by investing in the planning authority so it has the capacity to plan for future land release and so that when there is demand for future land, we have the planning done. The real legacy we faced with land release was the failure to fund that capacity in the old Planning and Land Management area so that, when there was demand, the planning had not been completed so that more land could be released, so we had to panic, and try to find the planning, and get it done and get it out.

We have taken a forward planning approach. We are putting land planned and on the shelf so that, when the demand is there, the land can be released without the need for costly and time-consuming planning done in a reactive, rather than a proactive, way. That is the approach and that is the government's record on planning for our city.

We have also emphasised the importance of linking transport with land use and we have not just talked about it in theory. We are starting to make it happen in practice. The government's commitment to remove the zonal bus fare structure and to introduce a flat fare structure has led to an increase of over 9 per cent in adult patronage on ACTION buses and a 4 per cent increase overall. That is the government's commitment and the government's record.

However, that is just the base on which we are now building the integrated transport plan for our city, a plan that will guide the revitalisation and upgrading of our existing bus interchanges and the provision of real time information to provide greater incentives and reliability for new and existing users when they come to use public transport. It will also provide, for the first time since the Liberals cut the program when they were elected in 1995, a detailed and exhaustive examination of light rail and other intertown transport technologies.

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