Page 3885 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 30 November 2021
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I am really excited to help make the visions of our community become a reality. I know that Minister Berry has been working with the Florey community for a long time to bring that dryland oval into reality too. I am delighted to bring this motion to the Assembly today—a motion informed by so many conversations with locals across Belconnen and Canberra, and I look forward to continuing to bring the voices of the community to the Assembly as a local member and as an ACT Greens MLA. I commend my motion to the Assembly.
MR CAIN (Ginninderra) (4.25): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As Shadow Minister for Planning and Land Management and a member for Ginninderra, I hear often from Canberrans concerned about the state of ovals in their neighbourhoods. I am firmly in support of the need to invest in under-utilised ovals. Unfortunately, it is no surprise that the ACT Labor-Greens government has been neglecting community facilities. They are broke, with record levels of debt and deficit. Basic services, such as these ovals could be providing, suffer as a result. The Labor-Greens 70-30 infill agenda puts such ovals at risk.
I will now go to why I am moving an amendment to the motion. They will say that it is not true, but we know that the Labor-Greens government have proposed to sell an oval for residential development in Kippax, as an example. So, are the dryland ovals next? How many developers’ drawing boards are each of these 31 ovals up on now?
So, I am moving the amendment circulated in my name, and I believe it is friendly to Ms Clay’s motion. I trust she will support it. I am asking the ACT Labor-Greens government to put on the record that they will not allow any residential or commercial development on these ovals.
I move:
After paragraph (3)(d), insert:
“(da) explicitly exclude the ACT’s dryland ovals from future residential and commercial development;”.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (4.26): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to dryland ovals under Ms Clay’s motion today, and was happy to work with the Greens office in supporting her in the development of this important motion. Our community has long valued and benefited from generous and diverse provision of open spaces in the ACT, which delivers a wide range of benefits to all of us. It is why we love Canberra.
We love our bush capital, and we love our green open spaces. Canberra’s open spaces, in their many forms, deliver so many opportunities for recreation and sport, connectivity between suburbs, and support for biodiversity and social interaction, as well as underpinning the beauty and the amenity of our wonderful bush capital. The value of these spaces has become even more important during the health emergency,
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