Page 1512 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2017
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I will turn briefly to each of the locations that have been of concern. If you have not been out to the sites I invite you to do so. These are very special places in our community. Dealing firstly with Chapman, that is a beautiful piece of land. It is used by the community. There are kids out there playing. It is an open space in our community that is zoned for the community’s use. There are significant concerns we are aware of with regard to bushfire mitigation. We have seen that evidence in the FOI as well.
I commend the people of Chapman who signed the petition. In response to the walk from Chapman to the Assembly on Saturday, it was disappointing that only the Liberal members—I, Mrs Jones and Mr Parton—turned up to receive that petition. Whether you agree with what is being said in that petition or not, whether you agree with those residents or not, when they walked 15 kilometres from Chapman into the Assembly, it would have been nice if Ms Le Couteur, Mr Steel or Ms Cody had made the effort to turn up and say, “Well done on engaging in the democratic process.” I thank the organisers and the walkers, some of whom are here today, for the work they have done. I also thank the Weston Creek Community Council for facilitating a number of discussions on this process.
With regard to Holder, I have already mentioned the PANDSI site. The post and antenatal depression group have been there for a long time. It has been evicted from this site to put this public housing complex there. The Chief Minister denied twice that there were any plans, although we know from the FOI that that is not the case. That was hidden from the community. Equally, the people from Holder have been working hard doorknocking out there, letterboxing, informing the community because it is very clear that the government did not want to. The consultation is happening now but if it were not for the members of the community, it never would have. I thank Jody and her team.
In respect of Wright, these issues are unique to Wright. It is a new suburb, as we all know. Wright is so overbuilt. There is virtually no space there for the community. Everybody expected that this block that had been there was going to be used for the community. Everybody expected that. What is very clear now is that it is going to be taken away from the community to be used for residential. Whether it is private or public does not matter; it is going to be a residential complex. That is not the intent of that site. I thank the community members in Wright for doing that. I note that there is no community council in Wright. So the people of Wright did that themselves. Christine and your team, well done!
Equally for Mawson, that is a very inappropriate site. If you go out there, you can see this from the lie of the land. This is a site that has been considered before for other developments and been rejected. Nicole and the team in Mawson have been going out working very hard. I thank the Woden Valley Community Council who facilitated a public meeting.
Members, I will conclude there. I will leave you with this point: we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of members of the community who have signed petitions to say, “Stop this. It is the wrong way to go.” The Canberra Liberals, the Canberra
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