Page 3336 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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they see again their ability to have infrastructure development prevented as a result of environmental concerns.
It does take me back, I think, to the last Assembly when the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment, which I was a part of, delivered a report entitled Wildlife Corridors and DV231—East Gungahlin Suburbs of Kenny and Throsby and Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve. Many of the issues mentioned in Mr Rattenbury’s motion today can find their context in that committee report of six years ago.
However, the impetus for today’s motion was instigated by a campaign posted on the web on 1 June 2011 by the Canberra Ornithologists Group in collaboration with the save Throsby group. They called on the public to write letters to Minister Corbell and Mr Rattenbury and the federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Mr Tony Burke, regarding their concerns in relation to developments at Throsby. The end result of where they would like that to be has been articulated by Mr Rattenbury and that is that Throsby does not go ahead at all.
But we did look at some similar issues in the environment committee report in 2005 which I spoke of earlier. Recommendation 2, which I disagreed with, stated:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Planning and Land Authority review the boundaries of the suburb of Throsby and re-draw them back towards Horse Park Drive so as to reduce the impact of residential development on Goorooyarroo and Mulligans Flat Nature Reserves.
The ACT Labor government at the time, despite the fact that the Labor members of the committee supported that recommendation, did not agree with this recommendation, citing that the boundaries of the reserve reflect the ecological values of the area based on the recommendations of the ACT lowland conservation woodland strategy, the land management requirements of the nature park and the addition thereto. The government did make provisions, however, for a future study to be conducted prior to land release.
Madam Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware, because you were part of that committee, this area has been studied to death. One of the reasons that we now have the Greens saying Throsby should not be developed at all, that there should not be a suburb of Throsby at all, is because it was actually reserved for future residential development some time ago. Much of the environmental value is there because it was reserved for future residential development. Because it is reserved for future residential development, it was not given long-term leases, long-term pastoral leases, and so the environmental values are greater.
This puts us in quite a quandary from a planning perspective. If we are going to engage in good planning and actually allow for the growth of our city, that involves reserving areas of land for future residential development. If then we are going to have a situation where the Labor Party and the Greens say, “Because we reserved it there is greater environmental value. Therefore, we will not develop on it.” It is quite a vicious cycle that we put ourselves in because we end up with a situation where we reserve land for future development and it becomes undevelopable because it has greater environmental value.
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