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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1846 ..

MRS DUNNE (5.38): The opposition will be opposing this disallowance. It is a slightly unusual procedure but it is important to put on the record and send a very strong message to the community and to the courts that this Assembly strongly supports the building of this road.

While I support the disallowance, I have to paraphrase the words of a comedian, “It’s a fine mess you got us into here, Ollie.” All of these things—the whole process of the Gungahlin Drive extension approval and the unedifying protests near the AIS—have been brought about because the government did not do its homework. They did not get it right the first time.

The government knew that this would be contentious. One of the things that has evolved through the many briefings that I have had on this over the past two or three weeks is that they knew, long before the approvals were made, that the opponents of the road were investigating and testing areas that they might be able to use to hold this up. They were making enquiries, or snooping around the government and the bureaucracy, to find and test the weaknesses. And knowing this, the government did not take the appropriate approach.

We are doubly blessed with hindsight. We should have gone down the road of enabling legislation from the outset. Today the opposition is presenting legislation that would, among other things, implement enabling legislation for the Gungahlin Drive. It is neat and clean; it is really a very elegant piece of legislation. The government should have thought of it a lot earlier. With all the resources at its disposal, the government should have been a bit smarter about this. We should not have had the guerrilla warfare in the courts and on the ground near the AIS that we had.

We the opposition want to put it very clearly on the record, as the government does, that we support the building of this road. We believe that it should go through as soon as possible. That is why we are not supporting this disallowance. Having been briefed and having had extensive discussions, I understand the motivation behind them.

I am still concerned that there are things that have been put into these regulations that do not relate precisely to the GDE and that they have used an opportunity to tinker at the margins with the application of the Land Act in areas that do not precisely relate to the GDE. I am discomfited by that, but not sufficiently discomfited to oppose the making of these regulations. I support the making of these regulations and therefore will not be supporting the disallowance.

MS DUNDAS (5.41): The ACT Democrats will be supporting this motion to disallow the regulations. This piece of subordinate legislation rolls together two different types of changes into one piece of legislation. The first change is a response to the recent judgment of Justice Crispin that some developments may require ACTPLA development approval to proceed even if they are on designated land. The second issue that is included in these regulations is a change that prevents appeals to development approvals for the Gungahlin Drive extension. It is a pity that the government has decided to combine these two issues because they are deserving of separate consideration.

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