Page 565 - Week 02 - Thursday, 17 February 2005
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DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.45): I am very pleased that we have the opportunity to comment in the Assembly on decisions made by the committee. Of course, I note the omission of any Greens perspective on the committee, not through any desire of our own.
Mrs Dunne: There wasn’t a Greens perspective on the last one, either.
Mr Hargreaves: Just a numerical solution.
DR FOSKEY: Thank you for those little annotations; I really appreciate them.
Mr Hargreaves: I thought you might.
DR FOSKEY: It would be nice if you listened as well, but that might be a little difficult.
Mr Hargreaves: That’s pushing it.
Mr Quinlan: Yes, that’s a bit much.
MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Dr Foskey has the floor.
DR FOSKEY: Thanks. I would like you to listen to me with the respect that I grant you.
MR SPEAKER: Interjections are disorderly, but it does not help much to respond to them.
DR FOSKEY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sure I needed that, too. We are in the process this year, I would assume, of doing what was planned when DV200 was adopted by the Assembly; that is, that it was agreed that in the middle of 2005, being two years after the adoption of the draft variation, as it was then, there would be a review of the success of that variation. Perhaps Mr Seselja is unaware of that. I can see that he is probably not hearing what I have to say, either.
The Greens would have seen that as a more preferable and more open mechanism for examining the impact of the neighbourhood planning process, which, in fact, did agree to A10 areas of a certain size around shopping centres. What happened—and I do not think that the processes by which it happened have been at all transparent; therefore, I do not feel that there is accountability there—is that a change was made at a rather crucial time, just before the ACT election, and suddenly it was decided that Downer would be the exception among the many inner suburban areas that had an A10 zone around their shopping centres. I note that the Downer shopping centre is in rather dire straits, so there is a problem there with the declining population.
I am going to finish by talking about a submission that I am sure that the members of the committee are familiar with. One of my constituents—and yours if you are a member for Molonglo—did put in a submission that I thought had some really good views, views that we do not hear put in the public forums. We all remember that prior to the election there were a number of public forums at which very vocal people said, “Down with DV200”. Obviously, they are the only people Mr Seselja has been listening to.
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