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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4004 ..

Bruce prior to any consideration of variation 241 by the committee and prior to the approval of the development itself by the headquarters of the Little Company of Mary.

The committee has again raised the issue that we are concerned that the government is treating the committee consideration phase as a rubber-stamping process and we are again disappointed that the committee’s work has been pre-empted by government announcements. As such, I would like to quote from report No 5 of the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment, where we said:

The Committee believes that the appropriate way to handle such developments is to complete the variation of the territory plan earlier rather than later in the process. This would enable the proposed variation to be considered on its merits without becoming confused with the detailed proposals of a specific developer. Issues such as alternative uses for the land, the areas to be preserved for community use, recreational space and the number of car parking spaces could be resolved in principle. It would also enable potential developers to have a clear idea of the requirements placed on the site throughout the process.

We have had to repeat in our 35th report to the Assembly what we said in our fifth report. I guess we are disappointed that earlier comments that we made in relation to committee processes were not heeded by the government. I hope that the government is listening to what I am saying today and that it will take those comments into consideration in its future dealings with committees.

The committee made three recommendations in relation to draft variation 241. One was that the variation proceed. But we also ask that the government ensure that there is adequate access for maintenance, fire mitigation and emergency ingress and egress onto the existing Haydon Drive access stub and Gossan Hill so that emergency access onto that part of the nature park can be maintained as the new development takes place. Concerns were raised by submitters about the need for adequate access, especially with the development of an aged care facility on that site.

We also ask that the ACT government ensure that future developments follow a more desirable process of dealing with detailed land use issues at the early stage of the development proposal rather than at a later stage. I commend this report to the Assembly.

MRS DUNNE (11.11): Mr Speaker, from the point of view of my constituency in Belconnen, this is a very important variation to the territory plan and one—and Ms Dundas alluded to this—that is much overdue. The planning and environment committee has acted quite expeditiously on this reference, considering that the variation came to us only last Thursday or perhaps Wednesday.

Mindful of the heavy requirement upon us in relation to solving the impasse over the aged care facility proposed by the Little Company of Mary, I think the committee all agreed that it was absolutely vital that we dealt with this in an expeditious way. Now that the report has been presented to the Assembly, it is our hope that the government will respond in such a way that this variation can be debated and finalised this week. If it is not finalised by Thursday, the variation will hang in limbo until another five or six sitting days pass and that might take us well into 2005. We cannot afford for that to happen.

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