Page 6177 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991

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


QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Planning Legislation

MR KAINE: I address a question to the Planning Minister, Mr Wood. This morning I heard Mr John Langmore on radio attributing the planning legislation, that excellent legislation, to the previous Government. Do you agree with Mr Langmore's position on this matter?

MR WOOD: I think that when I introduced the planning legislation I acknowledged the long work in its compilation, beginning with the Follett Government, carried on in your Government and concluded under the Follett Government. I did hear, in part of the debate, a claim that it was actually formed around a ping-pong table somewhere by some members of this Assembly or their colleagues outside the Assembly. But I certainly acknowledge that it has had a long gestation and that it is a document on which there is agreement amongst members of this Assembly substantially, if not on every detail.

The Government is proud of the document. The first Planning Minister put a lot of work into it. When I took over the job after the second Planning Minister, I lined up the principles that Ms Follett had first espoused for it and satisfied myself that they should be followed in the final legislation. Quite a number of changes were made. The final legislation is legislation that we on this side of the house are quite proud of.

MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question. You would agree that the major input by the second Planning Minister forms a very significant part of the Bill?

MR WOOD: We have always acknowledged that.

Ainslie Village

MR MOORE: Before I start, Mr Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the Assembly to the presence in the gallery of a visiting delegation from Laos which includes very senior public servants from a whole range of ministries. I would like to welcome them to our Assembly.

My question is addressed to Mr Connolly, as Minister for Housing. Minister, I mentioned the matter of the Ainslie Village shelter to you some months ago. At that time I indicated that the Ainslie Village company, of which I am a director, would not be able to continue funding the shelter after December 1991. Considering that there has been a 30 per cent increase in the number of homeless taken care of at the Ainslie Village since the beginning of the year and that the shelter has provided the only accommodation of its kind in the ACT, particularly for men, clearly there is a


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