Page 4292 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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community support. This is one of the keys to development in Canberra and everywhere else. There is no point in proposing developments where the community is actively opposed to them.
There is also no point in just doing lots of little things. If we go with the process I am talking about, I am asking ACTPLA to look at the whole area as an integrated plan. Let the community say, “Yes, clearly things have been talked about here for years. There will be some changes. Looking at the whole area, what is the best way to do this going forward?” There needs to be open consultation which includes the impact on the nature reserve, the local amenity and also the impacts and needs of a growing Canberra. The bottom line is that we need a holistic approach. If we do this well and ACTPLA works as a professional planning authority, there will be community approval because the community will be consulted. (Time expired.)
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (10.52): I wish to address in particular some of the integrity issues that obviously surround this action by the government. It is no secret that there has been talk about development on this site for decades. And for decades—or at least the last 16 years—the ACT Labor government has been somewhat reluctant to do much about it. Yet in the last few months everything seems to have changed.
The environment is still there. The neighbouring houses are still there. The golf course is still there. There is only one variable at play here, and that is the allegiance of club groups that the Federal Golf Club now belongs to and, importantly, the follow-up action by the minister. At best this is controversial. At worst it is corruption. I would dearly love to know what assurances the Labor government, and in particular Minister Gentleman, gave to the Federal Golf Club in the event that they were to change their allegiance. In my opinion that is what it could appear to come down to.
It would be fascinating to know whether Mr Gentleman said, “If you change your allegiance away from the anti-government club group to the pro-government club group, we will see what we can do.” It would be fascinating to know whether Minister Gentleman has been involved in any such negotiations. It seems that, as soon as that happened, the government rolled out the red carpet for this lease variation and possible Territory Plan variation.
The red carpet has been rolled out in a way that we have not seen before. We asked Minister Gentleman questions about this—about other times there has been a similar process put up for another development in Canberra—and he was unable to give a single example of ACTPLA pulling out all the stops to try to get this development up. The government are now tirelessly advocating for this development to get up, despite the fact that, for 16 years, they have been critical of this very proposal. What has changed to make the government change its tune? Of course, it is the change of allegiances—the change of membership in the Federal Golf Club to another club group.
In many ways, I do not actually begrudge the Federal Golf Club for making that move, especially if they were given an assurance by the minister that they would help them along the journey if they were to do that switch. It is quite a transactional approach: if
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