Page 962 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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will canvass these matters arising in 2019-20 with the Emergency Services Agency and is also asking for community views on all factors relating to the ACT’s susceptibility to fire and how the impact of bushfire was and is to be managed.
The committee has now advertised for, and directly invited, submissions to be lodged with it by 1 July 2020. The committee has also put details of the inquiry and its terms of reference on the committee website, in social media and with a range of media outlets in the ACT. The committee is seeking the views of the community and all stakeholders who have a role in the responses provided by the ACT Emergency Services Agency and other bodies during the 2019-20 season.
The committee will also be looking to invite the ESA and the government to hold discussions with the committee in public hearings later in the year, in person or via electronic means. In addition, the committee will be looking at findings by the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, established on 20 February 2020; the current New South Wales review of bushfire season 2019-20; as well as the results of the review of the ACT Emergency Services Agency’s experience in the 2019-20 bushfire season.
Any hearings and discussions conducted by the committee will be held in adherence to any COVID-19 restrictions or lack thereof, following consideration of submissions received by 1 July. A program of hearings will be placed on the website and will be included in public announcements by the committee, which will be published and put on social media in the usual way. The committee’s report to the Assembly is due by the end of the Ninth Assembly.
Planning and Urban Renewal—Standing Committee
Statement by chair
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (12.10): Pursuant to standing order 246A, I wish to make a statement on behalf of the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Renewal relating to petition number 31-19. This petition was received by the Assembly on 27 November 2019, and the Assembly resolved to refer the petition to the committee. The petition sought to draw the attention of the Assembly to the importance of the Coombs peninsula to residents of Coombs and to wildlife such as the pink-tailed worm-lizard and platypuses. With development planned for the Coombs peninsula, the petitioners requested that the Assembly protect the Coombs peninsula from multi-unit development.
The committee notes that the minister’s response to the petition, under standing order 100, made reference to the long-held intention by the ACT government to undertake development on the Coombs peninsula and the subsequent variations to the Territory Plan and the National Capital Plan. The minister noted that the Territory Plan variation “applied a future urban area (FUA) overlay over the area and an indicative residential RZ1 suburban zoning to the Coombs peninsula”. In addressing the belief, following an appeal to ACAT, that development was not going to occur on the Coombs peninsula, the minister indicated that, following the 2011 development approval:
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