Page 4448 - Week 14 - Thursday, 1 December 1994
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Tuggeranong - Retailing Needs Study
MR STEFANIAK: My question without notice is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. Minister, why has the ACT Government chosen to engage a Sydney based firm of consultants, rather than a local firm, to undertake a study of retailing needs in the Tuggeranong Valley? What is wrong with using local firms to examine local issues? Can the Minister also advise whether this Sydney based company, Ibecon Pty Ltd, has ever carried out any work for or on behalf of Leda Holdings Pty Ltd, the operators of the Tuggeranong Hyperdome, who are seeking to expand the shopping centre by some 16,000 square metres?
MR WOOD: This is another strange question from the Opposition. I understand that the Opposition is using a Sydney based firm for its political advertising.
Mrs Carnell: That is not true.
MR WOOD: Is that not true?
Mr De Domenico: No.
MR WOOD: Thank you for telling me that. It is a Canberra firm, is it?
Mr De Domenico: The question was: Whom are you paying?
MR WOOD: I could not tell you, actually. The firm from Sydney, whose name escapes me at the moment - - -
Mr Humphries: He told you - Ibecon.
MR WOOD: That firm is one which we believe can do the job. We had undertaken this consultancy Canberra-wide with a local firm. In fact, in early 1993, a group of three consultants was briefed to review a planned retail structure for Gungahlin and the proposed structure for South Tuggeranong. The consultants were to recommend a retail system for Canberra which would meet community and commercial objectives. The brief was terminated in July 1994 because of the consultants' inability fully to meet the requirements of the brief. That study drew upon 1991 transport, household expenditure and suburban population estimates. It did not, however, account fully for the significant post-1991 changes to trading hours, expanded retail provision by service stations and different retail economics. As I have said in this Assembly, the study was re-evaluated in July 1994, and the consultants are now revising their material to provide further plans. In order to get the answers that we want, we have commissioned a Sydney firm, because it is a firm which we believe will deliver the product we require. We have gone to Sydney to do so after not having received the necessary detail from a Canberra firm.
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