Page 231 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
so that the government could actually proceed to a lease. The answer was virtually none.
I am very proud to say that since that time, as a result of direct funding by this government, the planning and land authority has 10,000 pre-planned, on the shelf, ready for provision to the developer sites for dwellings. Whether that is to the LDA or the private sector, that concept planning stage has been completed.
Mr Seselja also criticised the government for not having a southern development front. I think Mr Seselja needs to go and talk to Mrs Dunne. Mrs Dunne is on the record as opposing the Molonglo Valley development. I do not know whether Mr Seselja has noticed, but there is no other development front in the southern side of Canberra, with the exception of west Bonython. The reason for that is that Tuggeranong is full. Either Mr Seselja is proposing that we go over the river, over the Murrumbidgee on the other side of the Tuggeranong Town Centre, or develop further down into the Lanyon Valley. From the government’s perspective, those clearly are not options.
The government took a strategic perspective, something which the previous government failed to do. We were lampooned by those opposite for having a spatial plan. They said, “You do not need a long term strategic plan. What a waste of money! Just get on with it.” As a result of the work on the spatial plan, we now have a new long-term development front for this city, and that is the Molonglo Valley.
More importantly, because of the planning work that we have done and because of the investment we have made in long-term strategic planning, we have the agreement of the National Capital Authority to proceed with an amendment to the National Capital Plan to provide for urban development in the Molonglo Valley. We have completed that work. We have got to a stage in the Molonglo Valley that took 15 years in Gungahlin. We have done it since 2002. We are at a stage now that, from concept to realisation, is probably going to be in the order of six years—six years for a whole new development area in the city that will accommodate 20,000 to 40,000 dwellings.
That is a significant planning achievement and it is recognised as such. The contradictory and carping criticism of those opposite simply shows their failure to understand that a long-term planning strategy delivers the options you need as a community to respond to the sorts of issues that we are now responding to.
The other issue I want to address is the land supply program generally. Since the federal budget, which came down after the ACT budget, we have seen a significant pick-up in demand for housing and for land associated with housing. That was not anticipated ahead of the federal budget. The government convenes regular industry consultation forums to get feedback on what they believe should be the appropriate levels of supply for both commercial and residential land.
Before the federal budget they were saying to us, “Ease off on your supply. You have got enough supply. You do not need any more supply at this point. Just hold on.” So we did. After the budget everyone said, “We need more supply.” We acknowledged that, and we have increased supply. Since the budget, in fact, between September and December last year, we released an additional 545 blocks to the market, and in the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .