Page 1498 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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As Mr Coe says, if there is a community meeting with more than 200 people attending it, it is clearly a significant public issue. I think everyone in this Assembly would agree that clearly we have some, at the least, issues of failure of process. Whether or not the particular result of this DA is the best or not, there clearly are some process issues with how we are getting to it. You cannot deny that.
Some of the issues that Mr Coe has raised Mr Barr has gone through in his speech. But one that I will particularly mention is the poor provision of parking at the centre. We should remember also that any additional residential that is done around there will require parking to be provided with it. I know that a number of people have been confused about this and have told me there would be no parking for residential. I think it is a pity that this misinformation has got out.
Moving to Mr Barr’s amendment, I must say I was very disappointed. Mr Barr, you did not say even one time “keeping the politics out of planning”. I was waiting for it.
Mrs Dunne: Didn’t get the bingo.
MS LE COUTEUR: No, no bingo. It is after 6 o’clock. We have got to have something to keep us awake, Mr Barr.
Mr Barr: Next time I will try harder.
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you. Most of this, as I said to Mr Barr when I first saw this, qualifies as the boringly factual; all these requirements are happening and there was the meeting. At point (3) he calls on the Assembly to allow without interference the independent statutory authority, ACTPLA, to assess development applications against the requirements of the Planning and Development Act and the territory plan 2008. I would like to say with regard to this that I think there clearly is a role for politics in planning. I have said that all along in my time in the Assembly. There is a role for politics in determining the direction that the planning system is going in, the overall direction that we are going and a sustainable direction. But I do not think the role of the Assembly is in approving, one by one, DAs. So I am very happy to agree with point (3) in Mr Barr’s motion.
I have circulated two amendments, but I will speak principally to my second one. Both of these are amendments to Mr Barr’s amendment. I did in fact circulate original amendments to both Mr Barr’s and Mr Coe’s offices, but Mr Coe unfortunately did not get back to me, so I felt that in the interests of getting said what I felt needed to be said I would do best to make amendments to Mr Barr’s amendment, which after all, as I said, is basically factual.
The first thing I want to say in my amendments is to talk about sustainable transport options. I may have confused people because you will find two amendments have been circulated by me. The first referred to the poor provision of sustainable transport options; it has now been changed to the need to improve sustainable transport options, because this was going to lead to more consensus.
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