Page 1358 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 10 May 1994
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Madam Speaker, the Executive has formally approved these variations under the provisions of the land Act, having considered the committee's endorsement of them; and it is for that reason, and with pleasure, that I table the variations.
There was a deal of comment made during the debate on the four variations - one of which I have not brought back at this stage - brought to the Assembly on the committee's behalf by Mr Berry. There was some comment about the Territory Plan. That was prompted by the fourth of Mr Berry's proposals here - the guidelines for Red Hill. Mr Cornwell made the point that he did not think that Canberra residents fully realised the impact of the Territory Plan. I believe that they did. The statements made by the Government never ceased to place at the front of the debate the fact that we were seeking different densities; that we were, in particular, seeking more variety of housing choice. We never stopped saying that.
One radio commentator in the debate at the time dragged something of a pink herring across the trail by focusing on the so-called pink bits. The pink bits, as I said repeatedly at the time, were a really unimportant part of the Territory Plan. They were an important part of this Government's consultative process, because they gave notice to the community about a large number of sites about which there was no clear definition and which had to be dealt with in the future. When those emerged, they had to be dealt with in the way that we all know. That may have taken some of the focus off one of the real impacts of the Territory Plan, and that is the matter of density and the matter of greater variation of housing in the ACT. If anybody did not know that, they were not listening. I get a bit angry at various times about so-called experts and commentators in this Territory who think these matters were not raised sufficiently. A lot of people who claim to be experts on the Territory Plan in fact know very little about it. That does not stop them from making comments about it.
Mr Cornwell, I am sure, will come to realise just how much the Government put up front the proposals we make. Naturally, people in the community will be interested in, and often concerned about, what is going to happen to them next. Naturally, they will have something to say. As we all know, there is no trouble in getting the ear of the media on such things. That is fine. I welcome that. That same ear of the media was attending to the debate on the Territory Plan. The Territory Plan was absolutely clear as to what would happen.
Mr Cornwell also mentioned the guidelines. I put out a statement indicating that we will develop more refinement of our guidelines across all of Canberra. Let us be clear. In fact, the guidelines are already in the Territory Plan. They are operative, and they are of a high standard. They require a high quality of building. For certain specific areas considered of particular importance - Red Hill, and B1 and B2 because of their densities - we set out to prepare specific additional guidelines to ensure that what happened in those areas was entirely appropriate and entirely in keeping with what we wanted. As a result of that process, and as a result of some difficulty in my three years as Minister in convincing builders and developers to get the highest quality of design into what they do, I decided that we would further refine the guidelines, additional to what is already in the Territory Plan, across all of Canberra. That is the process that Mr Cornwell mentioned.
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