Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1056 ..

aged persons’ accommodation. The current leader of the opposition agreed, when he signed off the master plan for Lake Ginninderra, that this site be for aged persons’ accommodation. Now they are saying that it is time to revisit the proposal. They are playing politics with the planning process when it comes to Lake Ginninderra. Mr Smyth was the minister who agreed that that site on Lake Ginninderra be for aged persons’ accommodation. He signed off the master plan. He was the minister. He had to formally agree to the master plan, and he did it. And part of the master plan was that this site on Lake Ginninderra be a site for aged persons’ accommodation.

If you want to try to delay the provision of this land, go for your life. But I will be pointing out the hypocrisy of your position—the hypocrisy which says, “The government is too slow with aged persons’ accommodation, but we want to revisit the planning issues about this site, which has been on the Territory Plan for decades, which has been identified for years and years as aged persons’ accommodation, and which the government actually wants to sell so that we can build aged care facilities on it.”

It is not reasonable—and there is no argument—to revisit the question of the Lake Ginninderra site. There is no argument. The issue has been comprehensively investigated and addressed. Time and time again under the NCDC, under the previous Labor government, under the Carnell government, under the time when Mr Smyth was minister for planning and under this government it has been confirmed as a site for aged persons’ accommodation. You are now saying, “We want to go back and have another look at that because a couple of people”—only a couple of people—“are not happy with it.” There are always a couple of people unhappy with something in the planning system. You never get consensus. I think members will have learnt that you never get consensus on planning issues in this city; you never get 100 per cent.

I challenge you to go out and say to most Canberrans, “This is the site that should proceed for aged persons’ accommodation because it is the right place for it, it is a great place for aged persons’ accommodation. Why can’t an aged care facility be sited on the foreshore of Lake Ginninderra so that people can enjoy that aspect, so people can enjoy the proximity to the town centre, so people can enjoy the proximity to other services and facilities. What is wrong with that?”

The government will not be supporting Ms Dundas’s amendment. We are quite happy to support the substantive motion. We question whether it will prove to be of any real worth but we are quite happy to give our acceptance to the Assembly that the committee do that work. But to suggest that section 87 Belconnen should be included is not appropriate. It revisits an issue that has been debated time and again, an issue that was signed off by Mr Smyth when he was minister for planning as an appropriate site for aged persons’ accommodation and it has been identified since the NCDC first did the planning for Belconnen Town Centre as a site for community facilities. It is a good site, it is a sensible site, and we do not need to revisit that debate.

MR HARGREAVES (11.52): I am not happy with the substantive motion; I am not happy with the amendment, so I will speak to them both. My concerns about them go to a number of issues, so if I seem to jump around a bit I am sorry.

I do that because there has been so little notice of this thing coming forward. The first I heard about this—to my recollection—was a mention in an administration and

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .