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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 212 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, what the people clearly want is not what the minister wants. Why won't the minister listen to the community? Why aren't you listening, Minister? Which brings me to ask: how accessible and available is the Minister for Planning? Not very, sadly, if what I hear coming from the people of Gungahlin and its community council is true. I am told most reliably by many that Mr Corbell has not met with nor attended a meeting directly to discuss the planning of the town centre with the Gungahlin Community Council. That is a sad reflection of just how you have lost touch with the people, Minister. I would say that it is a leaf right out of the Paul Keating book on politics; if they don't agree with you, just ignore them.

In most cities round the world the trend is for street closures in favour of pedestrian malls. To quote Mr Corbell from his spatial plan documentation, "Planning is about people and where they live. It needs to involve those same people."I totally agree, but it does not seem to apply in Gungahlin. What do we have instead? A major shopping centre being planned, with a major road smack bang through the middle. Thanks for the traffic!

With the shopping centre nowhere near completion and with much more residential and business development still to come, there is already a serious threat to safety. A big concern I have is the crisscrossing of roads in a pattern which I can only say does not bode well for pedestrians with shopping carts, babies in prams and the like. Is this the promised planning for the people of Gungahlin? Is this the process that listens to people? I don't think so.

There is at this time, I believe, still the opportunity for the minister to listen to the ideas and preferences of the people of Gungahlin and have a reconfiguration, as has been well suggested, of sections 13, 14 and 37. Why is the government so blinkered and simply telling the community what they will get, instead of asking them what they want? This is government heavy-handedness at its insensitive worst. The harsh reality is that the message being received by the residents of Gungahlin is that they are second class and the government is not listening to them.

Mr Speaker, this Assembly needs to make this Labor government understand that it is its duty to listen to the people of Gungahlin-not just Gungahlin, to the people of Canberra. I remind you, Mr Corbell, that you did say in this place today in relation to the bushfire crisis, but it does pertain to other areas, I am sure, that what we need is collaboration and communication on certain issues. I agree with that, Mr Corbell. I am sure that you would not disagree that this strategy should be endorsed across all areas within our community. The taxpayers should have some say. Please listen to your own words. Please listen to the Gungahlin community.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (7.50): Mr Speaker, the planning for the Gungahlin Town Centre has been one of the most extensive and comprehensive community consultation processes conducted since self-government. It has been a process conducted not only by previous Labor administrations, but also by previous Liberal administrations and is an ongoing process. Before Mrs Burke stands up again and criticises the grid pattern of streets in Gungahlin, she might like to check with her colleague the Leader of the Opposition about when he was Minister for Planning, with the senator-elect for the ACT, Mr Humphries, about when he was Minister for Planning and with Mr Wood about when he was Minister for Planning.

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