Page 4171 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Speaker has received a letter from Mr Wood proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The sound planning principles behind the ACT urban infrastructure should not be disregarded.
MR WOOD (4.29): Mr Deputy Speaker, it is an extreme irony that in this city, which is a monument to very good planning, we have a Government which is clearly inept in its planning. I have said before that the way it has embarked on its program to close schools is clear evidence of that. Mr Humphries gave us further evidence today when he could not bring a fairly simple motion effectively into this parliament.
Canberra is evidence that planning works. The Government seems not to recognise that fact. It is recognised around the world, however, that Canberra is a successfully planned city that is working extremely well. I think the only area in which that planning is now having some difficulty is in its concentration on roads as its means of major access from the decentralised communities. The Government, however, in relation to what it is doing in schools, seems on course to break down some aspects of this carefully and well planned city.
If there is one view that Canberrans have clearly expressed in recent times, it is that they like Canberra; they like it the way it is, and they do not want it changed. I do not think anybody would dispute that. Indeed, I believe that the intensity of the opposition to school closures is based not just on the closing of schools but also on the fact that it is seen as an attack on our beautiful city. The Government is dismantling some of those planning concepts which began with Walter Burley Griffin. Those concepts were well carried on, following Menzies' establishment of the National Capital Planning Committee.
They have not been well served by Mr Humphries' off-the-cuff proposal to close up to 25 schools. That has resulted in some very backward steps in relation to our carefully planned city. Mr Humphries came into this Assembly with no prior thought to the notion that this city was carefully planned. He certainly had no planning in mind. Such planning as has been done has been very much on a catch-up
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