Page 3312 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, as I have indicated several times now, the Department of Public Administration will be addressing this matter as an urgent matter, and I expect that Mr Kaine's own committee will also want to look at it in a rather more timely fashion perhaps than they have some other matters, and report back to this Assembly and to the Government.
Planning Authority
MRS GRASSBY: My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. In view of the willingness of some to criticise planning in the ACT, can the Minister indicate how the ACT Planning Authority's performance is regarded nationally?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, in times like this, numbers of people can find ground sometimes, as they see it, to criticise planning in the ACT and the Planning Authority. I think members in this Assembly, especially those like me who have contact with the Planning Authority and the PDI Committee - it also has very frequent contact with the authority - acknowledge that the officers in that authority are committed and professional, they are dedicated to the work and they do a good job.
Sometimes it is hard to get that message to the community. For example, I endeavoured this week to point out to some of the media the significance of the very significant award that the ACT Planning Authority received. This award was a national award from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and was for the planning of the Gungahlin Town Centre. Members have followed the documentation of that and any comments I have had agree on the excellence of that planning. It is still, of course, at an early stage. The Planning Authority won the category of best planning study, and they did so in the face of some very strong submissions from all over Australia and South-East Asia. So, it is a great credit to them.
The particular feature that was highlighted by the judges was the process. Members will recall that that process was an open process and involved a great deal of public consultation something the members across the chamber tend to denigrate from time to time. But that process was one where the Planning Authority went out in a different mode to that which is often used. It had no pre-drawings, no ideas on paper, and no concept plan; but it went to the community and said, "What do you want in a town centre?". It reflects the Government's priorities on consultation and, I think, in achieving this award, the very considerable expertise, the professionalism, of the Planning Authority. I think it deserves note.
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