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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4481 ..

MS HORODNY (4.11): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have some concerns about the process used to assess the environmental impact of this proposal. I have to question whether the public environment report that has been produced can really be accepted by the Government as fully meeting the requirements of the Land Act. It is a shame that Mr Humphries is not here to listen to the response.

Mr Moore: He is, actually.

MS HORODNY: Is he? Okay. I am doubtful whether the PER meets the scoping requirements agreed at the round table conference and included in Appendix A of the PER, and also the regulations under the Land Act which prescribe the general matters which must be covered by a PER. We need to get back to the basics and look at what should actually be assessed here.

The Belconnen Soccer Club has requested from the Government the grant of a lease over section 71, McKellar, for the purpose of building an enclosed soccer stadium for at least 6,000 people, a sports hall big enough for four futsal courts, a licensed club of 2,500 square metres, two training fields, and a car park for over 1,000 cars. The decision that is being assessed is whether a lease should be granted. The proponent for the environment assessment is not the Belconnen Soccer Club, but the land allocation section of the Department of Urban Services. Surely it is the responsibility of the Department of Urban Services to look a bit wider than at just what the Belconnen Soccer Club wants to do with this site and to look, in fact, at the potential use of this site in terms of what would be in the best interests of Canberra as a whole. The fundamental questions that you would think that Urban Services should ask are, firstly, whether there is a need for a sports facility of this large a scale in this part of Canberra; and, secondly, if there is a need, whether this is the best site for it and whether there are better sites. For example, I understand that National Soccer League games have started to be held at Bruce Stadium. Given that this is the type of game that the Belconnen Soccer Club was hoping to attract, perhaps the building of a larger special purpose soccer stadium in Canberra would be redundant.

The third question is whether there are other potential uses of the McKellar site that could not proceed in the future if it were given over to soccer, and perhaps a smaller-scale public playing field might be more appropriate. It certainly would have a much lower impact on that area. When you read the regulations under the Land Act which prescribe what should be covered in a PER, the emphasis is on the assessment of alternatives. It is always difficult to determine absolute measures of environmental impact; but it is possible to look at the relative impacts of different options or measures to achieve a particular end, and that is why the consideration of alternative approaches should be important to the assessment process.

When you read the PER you get the distinct impression that it could have been written by the Belconnen Soccer Club. It is all about the soccer club's requirements and how these can be met on the McKellar site and no other. There is very little discussion of the broader planning questions that I have just gone over; nor is there a comprehensive assessment of alternative sites; and there is no discussion of possible alternative uses of the McKellar site. The Canberra community is given the choice of either a huge soccer stadium on the site or nothing.

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