Page 2544 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 June 2005
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block of land next door was issued for sale at auction by the LDA, which is a completely independent authority; in fact, it is independent of government. It does not take direction per se from anybody and there has never been, and never will be, any obligation on the part of the LDA to consult anybody about auctions of adjacent land.
When the time comes for the new owner of the block of land to submit plans for what they intend to do, there are statutory processes that need to be undergone as they develop an application stage—PAs and all those sorts of things. That is when the consultation process should go on. I do not see anything that needs to be the case.
Mr Stefaniak, without using direct words, seems to assume that there is an obligation on the part of government to inform everybody in the adjacent area of its plans. In this regard the tender processes to do with the management contract were done according to the rules. The auction process for the adjacent block of land was done according to the rules. The person who has bought the block of land next door to the leisure centre, for all we know, can put anything on it within the context of the land use policy of the territory plan. That is that.
MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Given that one-third of the income of the Tuggeranong lakeside pool and leisure centre comes from their health club facility would it not have been commonsense, and indeed common decency, to tell the prospective tenderers that the government was going to allow a competing health centre to be built next door, or is this a case of the left hand not having a clue what the right hand is doing?
MR HARGREAVES: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition may very well say that. I could not possibly comment.
Community television
MRS DUNNE: My question is to the minister for economic development, Mr Quinlan. Minister, is it the case that a group called Community Television Canberra approached BusinessACT in December of last year requesting funding of just under $500,000 as start-up for community television? What was your department’s response?
MR QUINLAN: I do not have the detail of that. I would have to take that on notice.
MRS DUNNE: Are you, the rest of your government and the bureaucracy favourably disposed to the implementation of community television in Canberra and would you consider funding it?
MR QUINLAN: I am sure that the government would. Whether it is appropriate that that funding be under the banner of BusinessACT or more a community grant, I would not know, because, as I do not have the details, I do not know exactly how the enterprise would operate, what its purpose would be and what its contribution to the economy would be as opposed to its contribution to the community. In examining any application we would, of course, view all of those things. As you are aware, this government and governments past have supported various developments within the community but have generally segmented them under community, under social and under economic.
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