Page 3039 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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Mr Barr: Well, Alistair, if in 12 years time you are ever in government, everything that you have said in your first six months you will deeply regret.
MR COE: I think there is a fair chance that I will be here. Whether Mr Hargreaves is still here, or whether Mr Stanhope is here in a year, will be the real question, I think. But there are serious concerns raised in the estimates report, especially in recommendations 19 and 20, which are core issues that the government are not dealing with at the moment. They should be doing it, and it is a shame that the estimates committee had to highlight that.
Debate (on motion by Mr Corbell) adjourned to a later hour.
Planning, Public Works and Territory and Municipal Services—Standing Committee
Reference
Debate resumed.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (7:36): I move the following amendment that has been circulated in my name:
Add the following paragraph:
“(3) any other relevant matter.”.
I will speak only very briefly on this. The amendment is quite straightforward. It says “any other relevant matter”. The reason it says this is because there are a few matters which I think will be very relevant to the investigation, such as sustainability and the impact on other parts of Canberra. Given the time constraints that we had, having put it back to talk about it today rather than during the next sitting period, we do not have time for greater elaboration of the terms of reference, so I am sure that “any other relevant matter” will cover whatever the committee needs to talk about.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (7.36): I welcome Ms Le Couteur’s amendment because I think that it does enhance the motion put forward by the minister. The minister, I suppose, is taking policy reform in tiny, little baby steps: “We’ll move it a little bit up Northbourne Avenue.” The Labor Party, for the most part, have come very slowly to the idea of urban infill.
Mr Corbell really should not snicker like that, because he has got form. Most of the urban infill that was being proposed over a long period of time was held up courtesy of Simon Corbell. When he became the planning minister, his policy solution was to come up with the flawed A10 policy, which was roundly criticised by huge cross-sections of the community. There were hundreds of objections, for a variety of reasons, and Mr Corbell said, “We couldn’t possibly take that into consideration because people had a diversity of views.” A four-member committee of this place came up with a unanimous report that the A10 policy was flawed; that the minister should take it back and start again; that he should not look not infill in individual
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