Page 3029 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 15 September 2015
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Mr Coe mentioned, when people actually do development, the cost of the LVC is passed on to consumers. I wish I had more time to talk about it. However, it is worth talking about the irony, the hypocrisy, when Mr Barr talks about a party in too many rooms and then in the next speech he talks about his pop up, what a success that has been and how he wants to build up Northbourne and down to West Basin, and then he talks about what is happening at New Acton.
If there are perverse planning outcomes, if we are having a party in too many rooms, if the pop up is an exemplar of poor planning outcomes and if the LDA is a behemoth that I think has reached a point where people who are trying to do business in this town are incredibly frustrated, the question is: at whose feet do we put this? I think the answer is that it is those opposite. It is this government that has created the problem. We are seeing that the people that want to build in this city are doing exactly what the government’s mates in the 1973 Foundation are doing with the pokie money: they are taking the pokie money out of Canberra and they are going up to Sydney and doing developments in Sydney, because even the Labor Party does not want to pay the lease variation charge.
MS FITZHARRIS (Molonglo) (4.26): I am very pleased to have the opportunity today to talk about the importance of urban renewal in Civic and in our town centres. We are all proud of Canberra; it is truly a wonderful place to live. As we all know, this government has a clear plan for urban renewal and for our town centres. Our latest budget will deliver more funding for urban and suburban renewal in particular, including revitalising our shopping centres, maintaining our playgrounds, mowing our suburbs and cleaning our lakes. We will see an additional $8 million invested over the next four years for more frequent mowing across Canberra’s 4,500 hectares of urban open space, weed control on major thoroughfares, maintenance of trees, shrubs, lakes and ponds and anti-graffiti measures.
Urban renewal and maintenance is a core function of the territory government and is something Labor is committed to. We are renewing public housing, initiating planning reforms and redeveloping significant areas of our city, in particular town centres—all efforts that will create a better Canberra. In my region of Gungahlin, the town centre is extremely important, as I know the town centres are across the city. Each has its own history and character, and this government understands this deeply. We understand, for example, what it will mean to town centres to lose jobs, in particular how devastating the loss of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection would be to the Belconnen town centre.
Although Gungahlin is one of the ACT’s younger regions, we need investment in services to ensure the region can keep pace with the incredible population growth we are seeing. The establishment of a brand-new office block, Winyu House, in the Gungahlin town centre earlier this year is central to the town centre’s success. Winyu House is home to some 650 ACT government workers, mainly from ACT Shared Services. It also houses the Access Canberra shopfront and hosts a childcare centre and a vibrant new cafe.
Not only does Winyu House bring 650 workers into the town centre to shop at local shops and boost the local economy; it also ensures there is local employment
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