Page 4222 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .


Mr Collaery: Well, he wants to tell us about his meeting with Paul Whalan on 8 May, when he sold us out.

MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Collaery, please!

MR MOORE: I will refrain from commenting any more, Mr Speaker, on interjections from Walter Mitty.

This legislation and the Territory Plan, read together, provide for a new vision of Canberra, a developers' vision. The draft Territory Plan must be rejected outright. When worldwide there is a move towards strategic planning, the ACT Planning Authority is rejecting its own planning concepts in favour of a discredited zoning system. Worldwide, planners are moving away from a zoning system towards a strategic planning system - the system that we had - while the ACT is doing the reverse.

What does the proposed zoning system offer Canberra? It offers the opportunity for it to become like other cities. Canberra will become zoned, and we can expect it to grow like Wollongong or Newcastle. The costs of this plan and legislation will be astronomical. Betterment charges will most likely remain at 50 per cent, undermining the community's greatest asset but encouraging development. Under the zoning system, without a strategic plan, our community will no longer have the control to provide public infrastructure at the most economical time in the most economical area. In the long term, developers will be dictating how much infrastructure will go where. As an example, the costs of public transport are most easily understood if we are aware that to run each new bus costs us around $100,000 a year.

The predominant land use zones, PLUZs, are simply a zoning system added on top of other controls. Under this system successful appeals will become a thing of the past. One of the main arguments for new legislation - in spite of our previous interchange, I am sure that Mr Collaery and I are in agreement on this - was to increase the appeal rights of citizens. The zoning system that is outlined in the Territory Plan undermines these rights. One example is that in the residential zone it is possible to appeal if there is any increase in the number of dwellings; but what chance of success has an appeal where two, three or four dwellings of two storeys and a basement are allowed in the zone? The answer is zilch. The whole appeal system, the whole zoning system, is simply a farce.

I have long argued that to debate this legislation without the Territory Plan would be a disaster. Credit goes to the Minister, Bill Wood, for making the draft plan available.

Mr Collaery: Last night.


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .