Page 1749 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 May 2005
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place. In fact, the Greens have a number of proposals for doing just that. We will be revealing those in the course of this Assembly, but I think you will find that none of them is anywhere near as costly as the plans that Mr Snow and others put.
There are a number of priorities that should be higher on this government’s agenda than the revitalisation of City Hill and the Canberra city centre. For example, I am proposing a motion today—and you are aware from earlier efforts that I made in the Assembly—that says we need more affordable housing in the ACT. None of the proposals so far for Civic has made any mention at all of what they will do for affordable housing.
Also, Mr Speaker, we need community space. What we have seen over the last decade or so, and since self-government, under both flavours of government, is an erosion of community facilities and a lessening of community space. We have some ideas on how we might grapple with that problem as well.
The debate about City Hill is very good. It needs to be had, but we also need to be aware that our newspaper, which has been the prime driver of it over the past couple of weeks, has been very grateful for the opportunity to fill up pages with pretty pictures. I endorse that happening, but I think we should be aware that perhaps that was more the point of it than anything else. Also we do need to be aware that the paper thrives, like other media thrive, on adversarial issues. And it is interesting to see that the Liberals are prepared to fulfil that particular part of the paper’s agenda.
But we need to talk about the whole city. What has happened is that we have got this incredible focus on Civic. The city was designed—and I know the Canberra plan subtly made a difference to this—to have a number of town centres, neighbourhood centres and intermediate centres. This was basic to our plan: the idea that everyone should be able to walk to their shop and kids should be able to walk to school. I think we would all agree that that is good planning policy, even though it is becoming a little bit expensive.
What has happened to Belconnen? There is a place that needs attention. I am not a member for Belconnen. I hope that the members for Belconnen in this place will stand up for it. Let us not see all our dollars go into Belconnen and neglect Tuggeranong and Woden. Woden is in my electorate. I know that the community council there has a number of major concerns about it. So let us look at Civic in its context as part of a city.
The real substance of Mr Seselja’s motion was part 4, which “calls on the Minister for Planning to consider all options with a view to the best outcomes being delivered for the City Hill/Canberra city area”. I would be disappointed if the minister did not consider all options and I would be prepared to consider a further motion if he did not. I also hope that he goes out and seeks more options and talks to people other than the Snows and planners and architects who of course all want to realise their vision on our space. That is what they do.
As I said before, there is nothing yet revealed to show that either of the main proposals would consider the need for affordable housing, if housing is to be part of any development. We are told that it will. In Ireland, for instance, developers, before they even get planning approval, must show how 20 per cent of their developments will be affordable housing. I would like to see that one put into the revitalisation of Civic.
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