Page 1007 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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centre community at the sale stage so as not to create the levels of anxiety which have been created and not to create the situation which has now been created, which is that I have asked the Land Development Agency to withdraw the land from sale. I have asked the Land Development Agency to commence, through the Chief Minister’s Department and in consultation with ACTPLA, a master planning exercise. The consequence of that, of course, is that the sale of the land, if it is to proceed at all, will be delayed. And that is to be regretted. But I do not disagree that a proposal to sell commercial land which currently is utilised as a car park in a suburban shopping centre presents issues for that community that need to be addressed.
There are some historic issues and aspects to the Hawker shopping centre. It was initially, I understand—I might be corrected on this—proposed that Hawker would be a group centre but it is a proposal which was never achieved. The group centre, I think, is now Kippax. The group centre that was imagined for Hawker is not a group centre. I think at the heart of the decision in relation to parking at Hawker is that, in relation to the Hawker shopping centre, in its original configuration and its original development, it was imagined that it would be a group centre.
Mrs Dunne: It was downgraded.
MR STANHOPE: Yes, it was downgraded, I understand.
Mrs Dunne: The new territory plan, which was supposed to be policy neutral, changed the status.
MR STANHOPE: No, a long time ago, in the distant past under the NCDC, I think, no less. But my understanding—and I stand ready to be corrected on this; this is anecdotal, it is just something that I have gathered as an understanding—is that Hawker never realised its original—
Mrs Dunne: Because it was so close to Jamison.
MR STANHOPE: It was either Jamison or Kippax. Hawker is not the same as Jamison and Kippax. Hawker was leapfrogged. It is a significant shopping centre; it is a significant centre. It has grown well and it is a centre that those that use it enjoy and appreciate. I think that bit of history is relevant to decisions that have been taken to identify land at Hawker as potentially excess to the needs at that particular shopping centre, and that was the basis of the original decision.
The centre has developed in lots of other ways: it has a very active church, it has a KFC stuck off in the boondocks, it has developed a significant professional centre. I declare, perhaps I should openly, something of a conflict of interest. My wife shares accommodation in the office block at Hawker. I declare that. I do not believe I have a conflict but I declare that my wife has an office at Hawker. That is some of the background.
In response to the motion, I have indicated to all of those senior officials that are here today that the government is looking for guidance on a new approach but an approach which does not hogtie our capacity to sell land and to develop land. This now is
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