Page 4811 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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thorough. It has entailed the delivery of an information newsletter to residents in south Harrison, particularly those adjacent to Well Station Drive; the provision of a dedicated feedback email address, which allowed residents to make submissions and comments on the project; the receipt of 17 submissions covering 11 areas of concern; a personal response email from the Director of ACTPLA’s Planning Services Branch on each of the submissions received, providing a written response to concerns raised; a meeting of residents with Roads ACT and ACTPLA staff; and the provision of further personal response emails to residents regarding their specific concerns. And the Minister for Planning personally met a number of residents at the highly successful cabinet in the community held in Gungahlin earlier this year.
This alignment has been investigated thoroughly. It provides the most cost-effective delivery of this important piece of road infrastructure and provides the best outcome to the residents of Gungahlin as a whole. As I said before, I doubt very much whether Mr Coe is a qualified town planner and road engineer. I do not support Mr Coe’s motion.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (12.09): In concluding this debate, I think there are a number of things that are worth reflecting on in what we have heard over the last half hour or so from the government. It is pretty disappointing that here you have a minister and someone from the backbench acting like Sir Humphrey. They are so determined to follow process and so stubborn that they will not accept that what is in the territory plan may not be best for people in Canberra. They are so stubborn that they cannot possibly fathom that what is written in that plan could actually be improved. If we fail to make improvements, if we fail to make developments, we will not be getting very far at all.
I found Ms Porter’s contribution to the discussion to be particularly interesting, especially the beginning of it. She had a go at me for my contribution, having a go at me for bringing this motion and having a go at me about my age. It must be pretty demoralising for someone like Ms Porter to have a go at someone such as me when I got 50 per cent more votes than she did at the last election. That, too, must be pretty demoralising for her. But it really is an insult to the people of Gungahlin and to all the people of Canberra who have planning issues to have a member of the Assembly who says that this is a trivial issue, who says that this issue does not matter.
This is core business for elected representatives. We have a government. We have discharged responsibilities to the government to act on a day-to-day basis in our best interests. The point of this chamber, the point of the Legislative Assembly, is to oversee the government and make sure that it is doing the things that we want it to do. In this instance, the government is not. That is what we are saying.
We have roughly two-thirds of this Assembly telling the government that they are not doing the right thing here. The community has spoken and would like the government to respond. Instead, we have a planning minister who is too stubborn to admit that they are wrong and that there could be a better way of going about their business.
Ms Porter says that the minister received members of the community on this issue at the community cabinet. That is very good; it is very good that they have a community
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