Page 173 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 December 2016
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suspense until tomorrow. I also do not know how the issues of the past are going to get addressed.
The Greens certainly do support the role of a government land agency. We believe there needs to be greater enforcement of the legislative powers to ensure that planning is done strategically and in consultation with the community. The Greens are committed to improving transparency in government. We believe that the community should have more information about how government decisions are made and how they were made. This is one of the things that were really clear in the election campaign. This is what the community wants. I am sure every member here heard that when they were doorknocking. I certainly heard it multiple times every day I doorknocked.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Cody): Ms Le Couteur, may I ask you to speak up a little? Some members are finding it a little difficult to hear you.
MS LE COUTEUR: Sorry. I know I am a soft speaker, but I thought I was getting agitated enough that I would be loud.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you so much.
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Basically, we need to take the planning process out of the hands of big business and developers and put the community back in the centre of the process. That would remove a lot of the questions that we have about the processes that the LDA went through or did not go through and whether there were cosy relationships or not.
Something is not right. However, we do think the government have a role in urban land development. Clearly, they could address market failures. Clearly, one of the things they could do, but unfortunately the LDA has not done in the ACT, is provide demonstration projects. I would love to see the LDA doing demonstration urban infill projects. I know that they have thought about these, but I do not think this has happened for an awfully long time. Once upon a time ACT Housing did some very nice demonstration urban infill projects, but that space appears to have been vacated by the government.
The new LDA board we hope will have broader expertise than the current one. It has a lot of people who are, you could say, well connected within the industry. They are skills that are required. But they are not the only skills that are required. We really would like to see someone who has skills and expertise from the social and affordable housing sector. Affordable housing, or rather the lack of affordable housing, is one of the big problems in the ACT. It does not seem to be something that the LDA, as currently constituted, is assisting in.
We would also like to see someone with expertise in innovation and design excellence. As I was saying earlier, there is a real role for the LDA and other government land development agencies to lead the way in terms of good development and redevelopment in our city. We would like to see a community representative because, after all, the LDA is looking after very important assets for the community. They are creating new communities in Canberra.
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