Page 1949 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
In regard to what Dr Foskey is saying about the need for an EIS on this site, you only have to look at the development conditions to know that this should be supported. It refers to, and I will read it again:
siting of development in a manner which does not adversely impact on the ecology or visually intrude on the landscape character of the locality.
And indeed, if you go to the new section, which is “NUZ1—Broadacre Zone”, it makes the same point in point c) under “Zone Objectives”:
Ensure that development does not adversely impact or visually intrude on the landscape and environmental quality of the locality.
So what the government seems to be saying is that the LDA can put any block up for option and then it goes through a process, and it is only in the process that it gets approved or knocked off, whether or not it is consistent with the territory plan. If that is the way they are running the planning system, if that is the way the Chief Minister is running the LDA, then he is worthy of no confidence.
What he is doing, as he has done in this case, is set these blocks up for failure. That is what he is doing. If it is not compliant with the territory plan—and indeed, under the territory plan it has to be compliant with the national capital plan, and this whole point about what broadacre is able to be used for is very clearly set out in the national capital plan, with which the territory plan must be consistent—then what they have done is set the process up for failure.
In talking about paragraphs 2 and 4, the subject of this amendment, you have to consider the impacts on residents of the data centre and the gas-fired power plant. Without that, you will not be consistent with what is clearly laid out in both the old and the new territory plans: that you cannot affect the ecology and you cannot affect the visual amenity. And that is what this government have done. They have not sold a block that I believe can be considered compliant with the plan. In that regard, yet again, you get a proponent being set up for failure.
Indeed, we had the whole question of the letter that the Chief Minister supposedly sent to Mr Mackay on 19 July. Again, it is simply a recitation of what Mr Mackay said to the Chief Minister. It is one of those classic Yes, Minister letters that says, “Yes, thank you for your letter saying all these things. I now repeat all these things. You and I will consider all these things. Thank you very much.”
But in the end, when you go back to it, when you look at the documents that we have seen, the Chief Minister’s documents that he provided, it is quite clear that at the end of the day, the Chief Minister was the one who would decide. Again, I refer to the Chief Minister’s brief on 17 July 2007, from where Mr Mackay’s letter came. It says, talking of the Chief Minister, “until you have determined which of the three sites is to be offered to ActewAGL”. So there is a process before the ACTPLA process, and it is that process that we focus on today. And it is very important that we focus on that today.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .