Page 3484 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 2005
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states, in part: “calls on the ACT government to (a) commit to building and supporting the viability of local centres”. I am not quite sure what Dr Foskey is referring to there. I do not know if it is the government’s role these days to be building local centres. That is probably something that is best left to the private sector. It is probably recognised on both sides of this chamber that we have left those days behind us.
I would like to address some of the issues that Dr Foskey raised in her speech before moving on to what the minister had to say. Dr Foskey spoke, I think rightly, about the changing demographics. I saw that Stateline episode, in which the minister spoke about the move away from the traditional idea where the mother stays at home and walks the kids to the shops and things like that. That is true, but I think Dr Foskey rightly made the point—and the same thing occurred to me—that, while that is no longer necessarily always the case, it is still the case for many people. The population is aging and Dr Foskey’s point about the aging populating wanting to see the viability of local centres maintained is well made. It is a view that I certainly support.
Dr Foskey had some things to say about cars. I know she did not get into this generally. It is wonderful if families can walk to their local sporting fields and schools and shops. I am not in the anti-car camp in the same way that Dr Foskey is and I think that for families especially it is fantastic to have access to a car to be able to get around Canberra. As good as public transport can be at times, for the average family, where people have to be taken to different places, whether it is to sport, to school, friends’ houses, other places, it is unrealistic to expect that everything in a city like Canberra is going to be found in the local neighbourhood. We certainly do not live in a place like New York where people can walk to a lot of places or get public transport to the rest. So I think it is unrealistic, and I do not see that changing significantly in the near future.
Paragraph (3) of the motion states: “rejects intense residential development of core areas in suburbs that lack shops, schools and community facilities”. Variation 200 was supported by the Greens and they need to take part of the responsibility for variation 200, as it currently stands. I know Dr Foskey often likes to talk about the Greens, rather than herself, and the Greens’ position was to support variation 200. There are some flaws in the policy, as has been highlighted by the opposition over time.
For Dr Foskey now to be saying, “Well, we do not like these parts of it,” is all well and good, but she should own the fact that the Greens did support variation 200. I am not sure of how the vote went, but my understanding is that, without the support of the Greens, variation 200 would not have passed. The crossbench and the opposition would have rejected it. That was, of course, after the unanimous finding of a committee, which included, I think, Mr Hargreaves, rejecting variation 200. This has not been something that has had unanimous support. The Greens were instrumental in getting this over the line. So the Greens need to take their share of responsibility for variation 200 as well.
In relation to what the minister had to say, the promised guidelines to A10 have not materialised, and we certainly discussed that a couple of months ago here in the Assembly. The guidelines were promised again just before the last election. We found out in the budget process that there were no guidelines for the development of A10. The minister seems to be committed to A10. He made certain promises in relation to A10 and how it would be implemented. Those promises have not been kept and there is no sign that those guidelines will be available any time soon, certainly not in this financial year.
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