Page 2745 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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Given the level of development activity that continues to occur in the city, it does not appear to be having a huge impost. Let us reflect on it: less than a two per cent vacancy rate in this city at the moment. Building and office building is a very considerable investment but one that can be undertaken with a high degree of certainty at the moment because of that vacancy rate. I am sure that those development companies can afford a reasonable level of development application fee.
Mr Seselja also dealt with the busway. This is where the government is damned if it does and damned if it does not. We had Mr Seselja saying, “What a waste of money.” Then we had Dr Foskey saying, “The government has got to do more to plan for more public transport in this city.” We had them coming from both angles—too much and not enough. That suggests to me that the government has got a clear agenda and that it is continuing to work on the busway. The transit way is an important project.
The reality is that our city will continue to have to respond to the issue of rising petrol prices, the decline of that essential energy source and the need to build and future-proof the city for a future where reliance on communal transport modes will become more and more necessary. The transit way is about confirming the corridor for that future public transport link. Whether it is a light rail link, a heavy rail link, an O-bahn-type system or a busway, it does not really matter what the technology is. What does matter is that we have got the corridor confirmed. Cities that fail to make this provision, set the land aside and have clear corridors in place, with the detailed planning work done, will be left behind when it comes to the need to put in place effective rapid transit for their citizens.
This is the challenge we face from global warming and the challenge we face from the peak oil phenomenon. It is something which we must face. I will continue to advocate the importance of investing in public transport. Globally competitive cities have high-quality public transport. It is not just an environmental agenda; it is an economic and social agenda as well. Cities that ignore that fact will be cities that are left behind in the development of the global economy, the development of the sustainable economy, and the development of an economy of a society which takes its environmental responsibilities seriously.
Dr Foskey raised a range of issues on public consultation. Public consultation is not an area where ACTPLA is withdrawing from. Dr Foskey is wrong to suggest that. Public consultation remains a central part of informing good planning policy. Where Dr Foskey and I disagree is where and when that public consultation should take place. The government’s view is: public consultation is most important when it takes place in informing planning policy—what can go where, what type of development can happen, where it can happen, where it cannot happen—but you do not use public consultation processes to justify revisiting policy debates again and again and again, once the policy has been set and once someone has tried to put in place a development consistent with that policy. That is where we disagree. The government is right to say the community should be involved up front in setting the rules. Once the rules are set, if someone plays by the rules, they should be able to work through that process in an efficient way.
There are a range of other issues that members have raised in the debate today. I do not have time, regrettably, to go through them all, but I say in conclusion that members have not, in my view, fully addressed the full range of issues which the Planning and Land
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