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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4291 ..

at an early stage in the development of a proposal so that we do not have Assembly committees operating almost as a de facto rubber stamp for plans that have been dealt with or been discussed for quite an amount of time. The government has agreed that it is a desirable practice to have the variations being discussed at an early stage of the process.

However, it noted that this variation arose at the end of the planning process. Considering that the discussion about this block of land has been around longer than the life of this Assembly—it was actually discussed by the Fourth Assembly’s planning committee—I was a bit surprised to see the argument put forward that it thought that a territory plan variation was needed only at the end of the process.

I think that a message that government needs to heed and that has to be taken up by the next Assembly is that the draft variation process worked sometimes and did not work sometimes in the Fifth Assembly, that in some cases we have been looking at a variation almost as a rubber stamp—when all the planning has happened, when blocks of land have been sold, when leases have been signed and when there have been ideas about what is going to happen on a site. The committee has not had the opportunity to contribute to that process.

We have also seen the reverse happen and the committee has been able to come in at the early stages to work through fundamental land planning issues and make positive contributions to how the city will look and how planning will take place. I hope that government will be able to find a way of ensuring that committees are involved at an early stage in the future, that their role in looking at the overall territory plan and the planning process will be able to be supported and continue in the way that it should be and not seen merely as a rubber stamp.

With that being said, I am happy to see variation No 241 to the territory plan proceed. I note that the last stage has been done in quite a quick manner, but that was something that we saw as necessary to happen so that the aged care facility could be dealt with in a very rapid way. I will be opposing Mrs Dunne’s motion.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Territory plan—variation No 241

Motion (by Mrs Dunne) negatived:

That this Assembly, in accordance with section 29 of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991, rejects variation No 241 to the Territory Plan—Aged care facility, additional urban open space and expansion of Gossan Hill Nature Park, South Bruce.

Suspension of standing and temporary orders

Motion (by Ms Tucker) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:

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