Page 3490 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 2005
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they are not going to find them in the technical papers that accompanied ACTPLA’s planning reform project. For instance, how will reform impact on their local shopping centres? How will it impact on their neighbourhoods? Will they have a say? Those are questions that I do not believe have been addressed yet, but they are the questions that are important to people. I would have though that a more careful and sympathetic response to these issues and a preparedness to direct the variation 200 review to take these concerns into account would be the least that we could expect.
Mr Corbell indicates that the government has listened to the people of Giralang to the extent that he is asking the developers to provide more than just a corner store. It is very good that the lesson has been learnt from Latham. However, let us go a bit further. What about some public space, a place where people can sit and meet, with coffee shops and a shop where you can buy the necessities of life, the milk, the bread, and so on? We could be a little more proactive there.
I was interested to hear the minister say that the fact that only 10 per cent of retail spending now occurs in local centres is a reason not to support them.
Mr Seselja: Simon, somebody is misrepresenting you. Goodness me!
Mr Corbell: Yes, I know. You do that all the time.
DR FOSKEY: Ten per cent of spending is in local centres. I am not sure why you cited that figure, Mr Corbell, but it is not your turn to speak. All I want to say is that 10 per cent of growing retail expenditure is still quite a lot of money. Who spends that 10 per cent? It is people on their way home from work who like to pull in at the local shopping centre, rather than drive all the way out to the intermediate centres and to the big town centres, which is really quite inconvenient, just to pick up that pint of milk or that frozen dinner. That 10 per cent includes the people who have very small incomes and who may only have access to local shops. They may not have cars. They may have other reasons for needing to use the local centres. I think that 10 per cent is still quite significant.
There is real uncertainty out there in the suburbs. It is a community perception. People might say that the Greens are rumbling on again. But we are representing community fears that shops will be lost. When they see their supermarket close, they get very concerned. They get in touch with us. They probably get in touch with the government, too, even with the opposition.
Mr Seselja said that we really should leave building suburban centres to the private sector. He implied that the Greens said that this was the government’s role. No, I have never said that it is a role of government to build and provide suburban centres, although I do think they should provide community facilities in suburban centres. It is the role of our planning regime to shape the way developers build in our suburban centres. Why else do we have a planning system? If we really were going to leave it to the market, we could just get rid of ACTPLA altogether. Clearly, that is not what we want. It is not what I want and I do not think it is what the government wants. I do not think anyone would really like the result, complain all we will about ACTPLA.
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