Page 3459 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 September 2015
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the market of families that want to build and industry to give them confidence and a pipeline of work. And Mr Rattenbury has the hide to say, “They should buy a bigger block of land.” If you show them a way to afford it and you can show them a way to make the payments to afford that bigger block of land that you preach they should be buying, I am all ears, and so are all those homebuyers out there in the community, Mr Rattenbury.
It is about time we genuinely considered the impact these changes have—not in theory but in actual built form, when they are implemented out in the suburbs, on the homes in the greenfield developments and in our established suburbs—on the rights and abilities of home owners in this territory—the ratepayers, the people that pay our salaries—to fulfil their dreams of building and acquiring the homes they so truly deserve.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (5.41): The arrogance of those opposite is truly worrying. I believe Mr Gentleman knows these rules are a failure and not working, but he is stubbornly going ahead with them. Then you have Mr Rattenbury who knows about all these consequences and these failures, but he is happy for that to be the case. One is too stubborn to do anything about it and the other is revelling in the consequences of this failed policy.
Mr Rattenbury came into this place and said architects need to put more thought into design. That is what he said. Builders and architects need to put more thought into the design of houses in Canberra. Mr Rattenbury often has a go at other people in this place for being bush lawyers or bush engineers. Mr Rattenbury is apparently an architect now and is telling the architecture profession in Canberra that they need to put more thought into the design of houses in the ACT. What the people of the ACT need is for Mr Rattenbury and Mr Gentleman and those opposite to come to the realisation that their solar access rules have failed.
The estate plan of Moncrieff is this government’s legacy and Mr Rattenbury’s legacy in this place. For decades Mr Rattenbury can drive around Moncrieff and see all the houses there that face east and west or have double garages facing north and that is it. That will be his legacy. That will be the Labor legacy. It will be a solar-inefficient suburb five kilometres away from the nearest tram stop with people that may well struggle to ever get any reasonable energy efficiency.
It is all very well for Mr Rattenbury to come in here and preach about solar access, better architects and the like, but the fact is that, under his watch, we have seen a huge amount of greenfield development in the ACT. He has been a part of a cabinet that has seen a remarkable amount of greenfield development in the ACT, none of which is within walking distance of a proposed tram stop: none of it. We do not have a problem with greenfield development; we think suburbia is a good thing. We think a lot of people like living in suburbs and living on a large block. But, unfortunately, due to this government’s poor solar access rules, you get the worst of both worlds—you get solar inefficient homes and you get small blocks. There is nothing satisfying about that.
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