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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 241 ..

suffered, I believe, because the NCA allowed the airport to develop the business park, which was beyond the original purpose of the lease, as I understand it. The lease now reflects the reality, as does the ACT’s most recent planning overview, the spatial plan.

I understand that the airport is interested in establishing a hotel on the old Fairbairn site and so has particular interest in where the prison might or might not go. It is not only to do with the airport: the Commonwealth released land in Tuggeranong last year, I think it was, without checking with the ACT government about either local needs for the land or the best timing or method of sale. There is a lot of room for at least a little bit of cooperation.

In supporting the first two parts of Mr Hargreaves’s motion, I am not wishing to express a preference for Majura as the prison site at this stage. My office has had advice on the general shape of the project, but before we can make any further comments about site preferences we need to be taken through designs and details. The Hume site seems like a reasonable alternative, but can the site support a campus style, can men and women have quite separate—not staff sharing—places on the site, can the site support enough separations between remand and prison, et cetera? Is it suitable for enough outdoor activities and enough activities to be really a best practice prison?

We do have concerns about the possibility of aircraft noise at the Majura site. The extra stress of aircraft noise throughout the day is not going to produce a good environment for any rehabilitation or education, training or learning that can take place in prisons. The proposed location at Majura is, I understand, not immediately under a flight path and it is true that there are other offices located at the airport, but if we are going to work on Majura it would be useful to look carefully at outdoor noise levels. These comments are asides, really, because as I say I am supporting this motion as a comment of concern on the federal government’s actions in relation to land disposals in the ACT.

On the second point, it is important to note that there are serious medium-term limitations on the viability of an airport, particularly of an expanded airport. There is growing acknowledgment and recognition, including from oil company funded scientists, that our oil supplies, taking into account all the technological advances and so on, are running out. There are also limitations in the important grasslands and endangered species surrounding the airport, including an influence on the northernmost block of land.

On the point in Mr Hargreaves’s motion that I am amending, I do not agree with Mr Hargreaves that we can clearly say that the Commonwealth has breached its own guidelines for the disposal of excess property. There is certainly scope in the guidelines for the Commonwealth to take a more cooperative approach. However, the guidelines seem framed solely to prioritise Commonwealth interests and, disturbingly, to include in those interests any possible political problems in decisions. I seek leave to move the amendment circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

MS TUCKER: I move:

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