Page 2575 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 June 2005
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MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (5.09): Mr Speaker, I would like to respond to a couple of matters that Mr Corbell raised. Firstly, I refer to planning system reform. I certainly welcome the planning system reform process. As anyone in the community or industry who has dealt with planning will tell you, it is a long overdue reform. I said at the time, and I will continue to say so, that much within the announcement is positive. What will be important, though, is how the reform is implemented. The promise is one thing: the implementation is another. So I look forward to seeing that.
I make the point that this is the system that this minister has been in control of for going on four years. This minister needs to take some of the responsibility for the state that this massive planning system reform process is in at the moment. It is all well and good to say, “I’m going to reform it now” but he has been there for four years. I note that in the last Assembly Mr Corbell voted against a couple of motions that proposed significant reform of the planning system. He was so committed to reforming the planning system that he voted against such reform! As I said, I welcome his belated conversion to planning system reform. It remains to be seen how well this will be done, and we will be watching very closely.
I also have to say that there was nothing in Mr Corbell’s response—and hopefully when he gets up again he can address this issue—about his broken election promise in relation to A10 guidelines or in relation to the other broken election promise on cycle lanes. The broken election promise in relation to the guidelines is an important one. As I recall, this was a significant issue during the last election, particularly in the inner south and the inner north. Mr Corbell’s press release and his subsequent direction, his toothless direction, to ACTPLA, which was backed up by no funds, was designed to appease growing unrest in certain parts of Canberra over development in A10 areas.
I want to hear from Mr Corbell when he next gets up as to why he has broken that promise and when he expects that he will provide the money for the development of those guidelines. He made this promise on, I think, 9 September—at some time in September at the height of the election campaign when this was a significant issue. However, in budget deliberations straight after the election he threw it out the door. I want to hear Mr Corbell respond to that and the other broken election promise that I identified.
I certainly welcome increased patronage of ACTION but it has to be said that one of the reasons that more people are hopping on a bus is because it is pretty hard to find a park in Civic these days. It is nice for members of the Assembly to have reserved car parks but if you are coming into Civic at the moment it is not very easy to find a car park. So no doubt that is in part driving people on to buses. This is where we have this debate and this battle between taking regressive steps against motorists by getting rid of all the car parks and taking positive measures that make people want to catch the bus or whatever other public transport is available. This is a tension that has not been resolved. I think Mr Corbell needs to tell us why there are fewer car parks and whether this is a big part of why there has been an increase in patronage.
I would like to emphasise a point that I was not able to make earlier in relation to planning system reform. During the estimates process we heard from a number of industry groups that planning delays were the most significant problem in respect of the
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