Page 2924 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The most positive thing possibly about this development is the LDA’s suggestion that they might be doing some radical work on public transport so that the people of Woden and the inner south actually have some bus stops in accessible locations, but I note the price tag they are talking of, over $100 million, and I think it is really important to see that a real commitment is made to this, and it is not just something which encourages people to agree to other development and then the thing they really wanted does not happen.
I note that the LDA has considerable plans for transforming Woden and increasing the density there. We do support the idea of change in Woden and clearly some of those car parks could be better used. We do think it is very important, as I mentioned with the Yarralumla brickworks, that as well as the residential development there is significant public realm improvement. The two have to go hand in hand.
I know there have been a lot of presentations at the Woden Valley Community Council meetings, because I have seen a lot of them. I know there has been significantly mixed community reaction. I do not believe there has been enough community consultation. The LDA and ACTPLA are planning significant changes in Woden and I really do not think that the residents of Woden appreciate what is being planned for their town centre. Some of it will be good but people need to know that some of it will not have positive community reaction, although hopefully it may be good in the long run.
I will talk about clean economy very briefly because I am running out of time but I also note that my colleague Ms Hunter spoke about it at some length. We are glad to hear that the clean and green economy strategy will finally be released by April 2012. Maybe it is good that it is not part of the end of the year special with the other sustainability policies—
Mr Rattenbury: The Collingwood approach?
MS LE COUTEUR: The Collingwood approach. But I have to say that the government is not having an impressive record with a clean and green economy. Tomorrow we will actually debate my colleague Mr Rattenbury’s FIT legislation amendments, and here would have to be a spectacular example of failure—we have had an industry which has been encouraged by government regulation just to be kneecapped, or possibly even beheaded, by government regulation or lack of regulation. We have to do better than this.
Small business is another area where we have to do better than we are at present. It is very hard to tell what is happening in small business except anecdotally they are finding it tough. Supermarket policy is something clearly in the public arena at present and one of the biggest regrets here is that the government does not appear to be doing small business impact studies when they are releasing or approving changes in development. We have got a question on notice about this—it has not yet been answered—and examples of such impact analysis also seem to be extraordinarily hard to get hold of. We, so far, have failed to actually do so. This is a shame. There was a lot of work put into developing supermarket policy. I understand parts of it are being
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video