Page 2019 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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sites as well as the nature of the benefits a particular type of supermarket may bring—such as product diversity, quality of service, environmental gains, integration with existing retail/commercial centre, footprint and carparking.
The government has agreed to review this supermarket policy in light of the recent ACCC report into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries. The government has also reviewed the commonwealth’s response to that report. Our review is progressing, and I can tell you all today that, in broad terms, it is consistent with the findings and perspectives of the ACCC. However, this policy review is not yet finalised, and whilst I cannot this afternoon give the Assembly a firm date on its release, I can assure everyone that the government is seized of the importance of the review.
Looking further into Ms Le Couteur’s motion, particularly paragraph (3)(b)—the one I have the most difficulty with—the government does not agree that a gross floor area cap for supermarkets in local areas is good policy. We believe it is bad policy for two reasons: first, it is a figure that really is made up on the run. I do not know where it came from, other than this suggestion that it was in relation to a comment from an earlier DA refusal at Giralang. But I do not believe it has been properly thought through. I take my local supermarket, the Ainslie IGA, as an example. It has a gross floor area of 1200 square metres. What would happen to the Ainslie IGA if such a policy was adopted? Would it have to shed half its floor area? Good policy requires a considered approach that tests each individual development proposal on a range of criteria, including its impact on nearby local centres. This is how the Planning and Land Authority assesses development applications, and this is a much more considered approach to protecting local centres.
I might just talk a little now about how the territory plan currently protects local centres. As everyone in this place knows, it is the role of the territory plan to facilitate the orderly planning of the territory. I draw the attention of members to criterion 33 of the local centres precinct code that forms part of the territory plan. Criterion 33 requires that a proposal to carry out development in a local centre must have regard to any significant adverse economic impact on other commercially viable local centres. So I would expect that any statement by an applicant in support of a development application in order to satisfactorily address criterion 33 must consider the impacts of small business in nearby local centres.
It is important to stress that this is not my role; it is the role of the independent statutory planning authority. In this regard, I am advised that ACTPLA has sought further information from the applicant in the Giralang matter specifically regarding this issue. ACTPLA will, as required by law, rigorously assess the application under the territory plan once this extra information is received.
This motion raises some wider policy questions about how local centres fit within the retail hierarchy. The size of local centres has changed over time as planning ideas have evolved and commercial reality has changed. The local centres that developed in the central Canberra area prior to the mid-1960s were larger, with the size reduced thereafter to reflect the introduction of group centres into the hierarchy. As I indicated before, my local supermarket in Ainslie has a GFA of 1200 square metres, reflecting its development prior to the advent of group centres.
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