Page 1540 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2017
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With respect to the rules that have been changed and the goalposts that have been moved to allow this to occur, I think we can now see they have not been well understood by the community. Changes were made and the community was not aware of them. Mr Gentleman came in here and said, “Because technically we are allowed now to do this, it should go ahead.” That is not actually good enough. If you come up against significant disagreement in the community, you should not then say, “We’ve got the rules, we’ve got the numbers. We control the parliament, so we can do whatever we like; and at any rate we’ve changed the rules plenty of times beforehand, even though people generally weren’t aware of it.”
Certainly, the LDA were not promoting that when they were selling blocks in new Molonglo to the residents of Wright, who scrimped and saved to buy a block and to build a house that they might live in for the next 10 or 20 years, opposite what they thought would be community facilities, and which now is just going to be more residential, essentially.
The government should not question the intelligence of the people of Canberra and show a lack of respect for the electorate. Majority government comes with its dangers—don’t we know it? People talked about the dangers that the Howard government faced when it controlled both the lower and upper houses. We can all say that there were unfortunate consequences of that. This government has had full control of this chamber for a very long time, and perhaps a certain element of hubris and arrogance has crept in. “We can do it because we’ve got the numbers.”
It is perfectly reasonable that residents of Chapman, Holder, Wright and Mawson are distressed about the way that the development has been announced. They trusted the government that community facility zoned land was what it sounded like, and that it was for facilities that the whole community could use: community facilities such as a scout hall, a place of worship or a childcare centre. Residents of Wright have every reason to be shocked and disappointed when they are informed that the only block in their suburb set aside for community facilities will be more than three-quarters used up on medium density housing in an already very population-dense suburb.
I am watching this government not respond properly to the perfectly legitimate arguments against the proposed sites, in a way which affords no social justice to local residents and little social justice to those who will move in if the plans are just pushed through and continued. Instead, to accuse those against the proposal of being nimbies, which seems to be the preferred mechanism that the Chief Minister has used of late about anybody who does not like a proposed development, means that the only view of development in Canberra that is acceptable is that of the government. Isn’t this a democracy? Isn’t this meant to be where the people have some say on what happens?
I oppose the name calling or any insinuation that local residents are haters, which is simply untrue. I know Ms Berry is smart enough to know that that is the case. Locals distressed by these decisions are not nimbies. They do not dislike housing tenants. They are good people and they want just outcomes. But they have as much of a right to just outcomes as anybody else. I have not heard a single person fighting against
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