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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2967 ..

In terms of footpaths: I live in Weston and have been there for quite a while. The angle grinders have hit the footpaths there. I do a bit of walking around there in the early mornings. There has been considerable improvement. But again, that will be an ongoing task. That concludes what I want to say on that.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Suspension of standing order 76

Motion (by Mr Quinlan) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:

That standing order 76 be suspended for the remainder of the sitting.

Proposed expenditure—part 1.13—Planning and Land Authority, $34,305,000 (net cost of outputs) and $14,880,000 (capital injection), totalling $49,185,000.

MRS DUNNE (10.29): The Planning and Land Authority comes under a lot of scrutiny in this place; it was discussed at length here last Wednesday. There is a substantial appropriation for an organisation that touches many aspects of our lives. I hope that, as a result of this appropriation, we will find a way through some of the mire and that we can trust that the acting planning minister is onto it.

The amounts of $250,000 this year and $100,000 next year for reform of the planning and land system are well overdue. As we discussed last week, it has been the view of the Liberal opposition that it was much more important to address the issues of the much-pilloried land act and the inconsistencies in the territory plan, and to have a modern and innovative approach to land use policy, than to change the corporate structure of the organisation.

As I have said on a number of occasions, changing the name of an organisation does not change the culture. You do not change what the organisation does if you do not change the tools, and the basic tools of the Planning and Land Authority are the land act and the territory plan. The land act is badly in need of revision. I am glad to see that money is now committed to it.

I question the enormity of that sum—$350,000 over two years. It is too long. The people of the ACT and business in the ACT cannot afford to wait two years for a review of legislation that is so important, especially when considering the fact that since about April 2002 I have spoken and moved motions in this place for a review of the land act. It was always one of those things on the never-never. The money is here now and that is good. But I suspect that the money is much more than most of us anticipated would be needed for such a task and that the task will take far too long.

A substantial amount of money is in here for capital injection for initiatives around the territory in relation to the land release program. I hope that the land release program is on time, that we manage to release the land that we say that we will and that, when we do, we have auction documents that mean something—that when people buy something at auction, they cannot go off the next day and change what they will do on the site.

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