Page 5524 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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gets heard here as well. The more businesses we get there and the more viable we make them, the more viable the community will be.
Under my point “opportunities for business development” I think of the whole concept when, say, Manuka and Griffith were updated—and I was really pleased to be the minister at the time. We put money into the public space because we knew there was a dividend there. It was about renewing suburbs and shopping centres that had got a bit old and were looking a bit tired. The people at the Griffith shops particularly really grabbed the concept. They said, “We want to be the healthy shopping centre of the ACT.” They wanted good restaurants there. It has really come together for the people of Griffith. But it is to the advantage of all the people of the ACT. So we have got to get this right. We need to work on the businesses. It is not just about it being a restaurant strip or an eating place. It is about all of the other services that are there that support the community and support places like Erindale College.
My next point talks about the appropriate policy governing infill proposals. McWhae Circuit is on the north side of Erindale and there was a proposal for a conglomeration of blocks that was to be quite high density, but it has not gone ahead, which I think is a great decision for those that live in that area. But we have got to come to a position where we tell, particularly the development community, what is acceptable. We all talk about greater density, but we knock off so many proposals because it is not that sort of density that we want. So we need an appropriate policy governing infill in that area. It is a very large shopping centre—it would be one of the largest of the group centres in the ACT—and it is appropriate that it is supported by appropriate population. As the demographic changes and the size of families continues to decline in the ACT, it is important that we keep these areas available.
Many have spoken about the existing road structure, both in Erindale and around Erindale. The piece of road particularly between Ashley Drive and Sternberg is a great conundrum for people most mornings if you go that way. It can take a long time to get through, which is not a desired outcome. If people are going to use their cars, we should provide a system that allows them to use the roads effectively. Bottlenecks like that are long overdue for cleaning out.
I acknowledge the strong interest in transport links to and from Erindale. If we can get Erindale and Tuggeranong working together in concert in terms of providing transport that allows people to move through quickly without going to an area and stopping and changing, that would be a good outcome, particularly given the central location of Erindale. If we can get that working properly, that will be a great boon to public transport, not just internal to Erindale but inside the Tuggeranong Valley. I note Mr Barr’s comments about being below the Sulwood line. This will be a defining moment in the way people in Tuggeranong certainly see themselves. He refused to tell me whether we are wearing rebel grey or union blue, but the Sulwood line is there now. It is the people of Tuggeranong against the rest led by Mr Barr. We will remember that comment for a long time to come.
But it is a discrete area. It is the leg in the “Y”, as Ms Le Couteur pointed out, and in that role, of course, there is Tuggeranong holding up the rest of the ACT. It needs to be acknowledged that as the centre of 94,000 or 95,000 people it is the largest of the
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