Page 1752 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 May 2005
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not stand the test of time. They are wrong. Our planning Pol Pot over there did not start all this work on his own in 2001. This process has been going for some time.
Let us just refute some of his assertions. We actually put out a number of integrated plans for Civic—our city, planning our city, building our city—contrary to what Mr Corbell said. Indeed, on page 18 of Building our city, published in September 2001, there is a map that, lo and behold, has no cloverleaves at Parkes Way. Goodness me! I think I got there first. But others proposed it before me, Mr Corbell, as well you know. Planning in this city did not start with you in 2001—and, thankfully, it will continue after you are gone.
In terms of the Christmas celebrations, anybody who was in Civic on Christmas Eve, on the Friday before Christmas, would have joined in the legal profession’s Santa Claus parade. All sorts of activity goes on in Civic over Christmas. I think we put up the first Christmas tree. I am open to correction on that, but we certainly put up a Christmas tree for people to come together in Petrie Plaza. So Mr Corbell’s assertion does not stand the test of time. The other thing is that none of these celebrations happened under this government in their first two years in office—no fireworks, no celebrations; we had turned into Pleasantville.
Mr Corbell says that we have to keep the key cosmopolitan outcomes—yet the Minister for Urban Services is going to raise by 100 per cent over the next three years the taxes on outdoor cafes. That is a very strange commitment when looking for a key cosmopolitan outcome.
Mr Quinlan stood up and said, “Well, what did the previous government do? Ad hocery, absolutely nothing.” Well, again, to Mr Quinlan I say: our city, building our city and creating our city are the strategies that we had in place between 1999 and 2001. They are the basis of much of what has happened in the city today. But let us go further. We were not content to do that. We actually said that this was a very big issue because, as Mr Quinlan said, it is not about us in the next 10 years; it is about the next 50 to 100 years, and we have got to get it right. We called in the OECD and asked them to do a report, and they did a very good analysis of the changing need for the city, in particular the need for mixed use. I think the OECD got it right. Minister Corbell received that report, but unfortunately very little has happened since that report arrived.
Mr Quinlan said that the previous government did nothing. Yet we had the our city, creating our city and building our city plans, and the OECD’s report. We had city east concessions, we had City West concessions, we had residential concessions and we had public art. I will just name some of the public art: the cushion in Garema Place, the Ainslie sheep, the Honour Walk, the integrated circuitry and the talking piece of art down in City Walk. Section 40, the Canberra Centre, went ahead. Section 56 was done. We refurbished the street furniture. We refurbished City Walk. We built the new Playhouse. We started the Civic Square upgrade. We started the link project, which is only just going on now. We commenced the Hobart Place upgrade. We upgraded Garema Place. We put in the big screen, extra lighting and the street signage boards that are both art and information, and we upgraded the Civic bus interchange. So the work was being done; let us not have this Pol Pot arrangement or view of the world from Mr Corbell where everything starts in year zero. Lots of work was being done—and the shame of it is that that work has not been followed up.
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