Page 3338 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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residents of Gungahlin. It is about ensuring that any development in Gungahlin, particularly in Throsby, is appropriate development, taking into account all the issues, and the issues include the environment. That is what we are saying. We are saying that very clearly. The environment has value and we should take it into account in our planning decisions, as in other decisions. Moving more to the motion as distinct from the Leader of the Opposition’s—
Mr Corbell: Rant.
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you, Mr Corbell. I would have to agree with your statement in this case. I am seriously concerned, as has been demonstrated here, that ecological considerations are often an afterthought, or not even a thought in the planning and development process, rather an up-front consideration. I am indebted to the Leader of the Opposition for his exposition of why I am concerned that ecological issues are an afterthought—so I thank you, Mr Seselja.
The Greens are supportive of appropriate development, but we are concerned that it is in the right places. We recognise as a matter of fact that the ACT population is growing and we recognise there are potential impacts on this growth on valuable bushland around the ACT. That, of course, is why the Greens have ensured that there is an inquiry into the carrying capacity of the ACT and region. We are concerned about the impact of population growth on the ACT.
This is a major planning issue. It is a major issue for this Assembly in making sure that we do not have negative impacts on our immediate environment and on our wider environment. It is a major issue for the government and the Assembly as a whole, because we are talking about long-term planning here and we can assume that the make-up of the government is going to change over the sorts of time frames that we are talking about. We have a choice about how Canberra is going to grow. We can continue to grow Canberra ever outwards, which will impact more and more on the environment around us, or we can choose to change business as usual. We can choose, instead of entirely going outwards, to do some going upwards and to do some more intelligent design and some appropriate sizing.
Household sizes are decreasing in Canberra and house sizes are increasing. There is an obvious issue here. We can choose to have high quality sustainable infill and put a bit more effort into design or we can choose business as usual. It is clear to me, at any rate, and the Greens—and hopefully the Labor Party and hopefully even many members of the Liberal Party—that we need to stop clearing our precious biodiverse areas and instead protect them and develop more sustainability. While I am talking about sustainability, if we manage to develop more intensely we will be able to improve our transport system, rather than exacerbating this with urban sprawl.
As Mr Seselja mentioned, the issues that we are talking about today are not new. I thank him for his reference to the 2005 planning committee. This committee, as Mr Seselja noted, recommended drawing the edges of Throsby back towards Horse Park Drive away from the nature reserves. This was partly done, but again, as Mr Seselja noted, the government has not done what the planning committee—which, as Mr Seselja noted, did have government members on it—recommended. It leads
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