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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4440 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

still being owned by the minister and taken away from the ACT people. It does not matter whether or not planning is happening in a statutory authority or in a government department, it is still all coming from the top down. It has been taken away from the ACT people, who are increasingly frustrated by the process. All the good ideas in the world are no use unless they are acceptable to the communities that will have to bear the effects for decades to come.

I call on the planning minister to use the demise of the community planning forums-before they began-to develop a broad and participatory approach to planning in the ACT. CPFs have failed precisely because they tried to control and silence members of our community, rather than being cooperative and open minded. It is time to let community members have some control of their planning, so that they can identify the issues that are of most concern to them and comment on them freely, openly and fairly to the government and ACTPLA. It is only with a cooperative planning consultation system that the ACT can move to resolve its current planning conflicts.

MR CORNWELL (4.27): I regret that Mr Corbell has had to leave to go interstate to a meeting, I understand, and he cannot-

Mr Quinlan: A ministerial council.

MR CORNWELL: Indeed, thank you, Mr Quinlan. He cannot hear this debate, though that does not explain why he was out of the chamber for seven minutes during Mrs Dunne's 15-minute address or the beginning of it, at least. I can understand his departure now. I must say I am a little ambivalent about the title of this matter of public importance, "the state of the planning system in the ACT". I would probably have used another word which better described this situation.

Mr Quinlan: I want to hear your view on consultation, Greg.

MR CORNWELL: Thank you. We heard a lot from Mr Corbell. He gave us a throwaway line about how the Liberal Party is quite happy for developers to do whatever they wanted under our regime. He talked about good urban governance under this Labor Party. He also spoke about a commitment; an open space audit; the government taking over the sale of land; transport; and an integrated approach to living, working and playing.

One thing he did not mention was the provision of the facilities for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and I am, of course, talking about the aged.

Mr Wood: Leave me out of this.

MR CORNWELL: Whatever we may like to talk about regarding planning and the commitments that this government may have, Mr Wood, planning is also people. I see little evidence of that in relation to our vulnerable and our elderly. There has been no greater indictment of this government's poor planning process than the fact that despite repeated promises about facilities being provided, we have seen nothing in the two years that this government has been in office in new facilities for the aged. There has been a lot of talk. Indeed, on 21 July this year, Mr Corbell put out a media release saying that:

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