Page 3920 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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This motion obviously will pass this afternoon. I understand that is the will of the Assembly and we will work, as best we can, through this, with available budgets, to get the outcome that I think people want out of this. And I do not think we are that far apart. But I cannot support the way Ms Le Couteur has structured this amendment this afternoon.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.46): I almost thought I should stand up and say, “Woe is me; I am the planning minister,” after the perils of being the planning minister were outlined in the speech by the planning minister. But it is important. I have been a planning minister. I know how important it is. And I see the minister concentrates on paragraph (1)(f) of Ms Le Couteur’s amendment:
there is no systematic process for involving local communities in the planning processes that are impacting on communities …
A lot of the community believes that. You only have to come down to Tuggeranong and come to a Tuggeranong Community Council meeting and talk to the people of Fadden, Macarthur and Gilmore, who over the last five years had to put up with Karralika redevelopment, the placement of mobile phone towers, the potential for a dragway in their backyard, the potential for a prison in their backyard and the potential for a power station in their backyard, to know that a lot of people actually feel that. They actually do believe that they have been excluded specifically—
Mr Barr: Are you sure? Everyone wants to hit the veto button and go, “Not near me.”
MR SMYTH: No.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mrs Dunne): Order, Mr Barr! This is not a conversation.
MR SMYTH: They actually feel that they have been excluded from this planning process and they only find out about it when the decisions are made. You might disagree. That might be right or wrong but that is how they feel. Full power to David Dawes, who came to the Tuggeranong Community Council meeting a couple of weeks ago. There were representatives of LAPS, LDA and ACTPLA. When you get the then acting, and now permanent, head of a department to actually come down to get ahead of the game, a lot of people said, “That’s what we want. We actually want to be in this at the start.”
There are other issues that come out of that meeting that probably need to be addressed. But to have the head of the department there, a lot of people suddenly thought, “We’re finally being taken seriously by this government.” That is why something like (f) is important, because that is how people feel. If you want to bring it back to the Assembly, then maybe we as an organisation have failed. You might say ACTPLA have failed. You, as planning minister, have failed. You might also have done very well, but that is how people feel.
Mr Barr: It depends on whom you talk to.
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