Page 2027 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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The issue at Giralang is, of course, a very complex one. It is one that has been around for a number of years. The shops did deteriorate over a number of years, to a point where the shopping services simply were not there. Of course the petrol station still remains but the shopping centre itself did go, as far as the actual tenants were concerned.
The people of Giralang have been quite active and, indeed, quite vocal in their call for a shopping centre and in support of their local school. When plans were mooted that there would be shops established in Giralang once again, I think that was met with some excitement. However, the plans that have been proposed are quite controversial and the community has certainly engaged with ACTPLA on this issue.
There are many good examples throughout Canberra of local shops that serve many purposes, not just simply providing tenants that sell goods but also serve as a meeting point for the community, as I said earlier in my speech. Not far from where I live in Nicholls, there is a great example of a local shopping centre that is very well served by its tenants, very well served by the community and very well served as a social precinct.
I remember growing up in Wanniassa and the number of small shops in Wanniassa and the neighbouring suburb of Kambah was seemingly astronomical. There must have been six, seven, eight, nine or so local shopping centres in those two suburbs at that time in the late 1980s and 1990s, especially in the early to mid 1990s. Quite a few of the local shops in Kambah did struggle and, like many shopping centres in Canberra, did go in peaks in troughs. That is why it is all the more important that we do make sure we get the level of development right so that we can at least minimise the extent of the trough.
Going back to what the minister said earlier in terms of taking the politics out of planning, I think that is an important thing to do. I think it is important that we do not politicise the process especially. I think the process must be crystal clear. I think it must be clear, and it is important that everybody is aware of what the process is so that developers, landholders and the general public are well aware of their rights and well aware of how they can actually make a contribution to the process.
But when we say “take the politics out of planning”, I want to make sure that we, as an Assembly, never go down the line of just leaving bureaucrats to do the planning. I think that this is very much what Ms Le Couteur and Ms Hunter were saying earlier about getting the community involved in planning as well. I think that is absolutely vital. Once you take the community out of planning and you just have bureaucrats, suddenly the only thing that matters is efficiency or effectiveness from a government point of view. That is not necessarily good for developers; it is not necessarily good for shopkeepers; and it is not necessarily good for shoppers or for the community at large.
This minister, the champion of taking the politics out of planning, is a bit like the minister for housing who says that we should take politics out of housing and that we should take politics out of everything, it seems, in this place. It is a shame we are politicians, isn’t it? It is a shame that we, as politicians, want to take politics out of everything but that is a struggle that we are going to have to face. That is a struggle
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