Page 2299 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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MR KAINE (5.18): I will speak only briefly. The document that came to the Planning Committee from the Territory Planning Authority on this matter was a very comprehensive one - quite detailed, several pages of it - and it was clear that the Territory Planning Authority staff had gone through the Territory Plan in some detail to detect these errors. I was not particularly concerned that there were a few errors in what came to us. I think that the Planning Committee is clearly part of the checks and balances of government. We have a responsibility to double-check everything that comes to us. We would be most remiss if we just read everything as it came and accepted it without question.
I was not particularly perturbed that there were a very small number of errors in the large mass of detail that came to us. I think that that is to be expected. I do not think that it in any way puts a question mark on the competence or the efficiency and effectiveness of the Planning Authority staff. It is human error. There will be odd mistakes from time to time. It needs to be put in the context of the mass of information that came to us. Personally, I would not want the staff of the Planning Authority to believe that I, for one, as a member of this committee, was being critical of what they do. I think that would be a wrong impression.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE -
STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Draft Variation to the Territory Plan
MR LAMONT (5.20): Madam Speaker, I present report No. 14 of the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure on the draft variation to the Territory Plan - Holt, section 89, block 5, Belconnen golf course - together with a copy of the extracts from the minutes of proceedings. This report was provided to the Speaker for circulation on Friday, 16 July 1993, pursuant to the resolution of appointment. I move:
That the report be noted.
Sitting suspended from 5.21 to 8.00 pm
MR LAMONT: Madam Speaker, the variation which was tabled prior to dinner affects the area which is known as the Belconnen golf course. The variation is unique, to the extent that it proposes to allow development within an existing golf course environment. As you know, Madam Speaker, the Government has released a number of sites in the ACT over the last four years to provide for the joint development of housing estates and golf courses. In addition to that, there is also the Harcourt Hill proposal, which talks about an extended use of a golf course facility in Gungahlin to include resort-type development as well as housing.
This is a unique proposal, Madam Speaker. The committee was concerned to rigorously test the processes which led to the variation coming before it. I will go through in some detail that proposal and in fact the action we undertook, for I have a concern that there is a misunderstanding, deliberately engineered or otherwise, of the processes which are applied when a variation such as this is dealt with by the ACT Planning Authority and then penultimately by this committee.
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