Page 3368 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
(d) the implementation of best practice environmental performance standards; and
(e) the implementation of healthy, inclusive, high quality design.”.
The amendments remove the notion of a design competition, because such a competition will imply that the successful design will be constructed on the site. We cannot commit to such an action at this stage. There is an implication that if you have a competition about a given site, then something will happen on that site. That, we believe, would probably prejudice the discussions and the negotiations around what could happen on the entire block, not only that particular site. We think it is just early for that. I know it has taken a long time, but it is a very complex and complicated issue.
The other amendment more clearly outlines the government’s commitments to its attack on homelessness, its commitment to improving the lot of the disadvantaged and its commitment to environmentally sustainable design.
Fundamentally we agree with what the Greens are trying to do—come up with a nice marriage between attacking homelessness and supporting the disadvantaged, and doing it in an environmentally sustainable way so that the buildings that we have are real live buildings and can reduce the carbon footprint. We are looking at sustainable design, universal design. We support that.
The difficulty that we have about this particular motion is that the motion is concentrated on the Currong site. Were we to be talking about our approach to public housing across the board, we might have a slightly different view; it would depend on the wording. But I have to say that I am also concerned that you are talking abut the public housing stock. If we use that particular footprint, we can do no more than replace a building with the same type, either through the refurbishment of the existing one or by knocking it down and putting another one up.
We have not discussed it here, but we need to ask whether we would have a better social outcome by selling that particular area, that particular block; realising those funds; and translating them into environmentally sustainable properties elsewhere in Canberra. Would it be a better social outcome? We believe that it would.
We believe in what we are doing now in developing an exit strategy for multistorey properties—getting out of eight storeys and more, and going down into things like two storeys. For example, the private-public mix works very nicely at Kimberley Gardens in Wanniassa. From memory, I think that Housing ACT owns about five of the units. There are about 50 or 60 in that particular block. You would not know who is who. It is a good social outcome. We are not talking about knocking multi-unit properties on the head; what we are talking about is not necessarily going with eight-storey or multistorey blocks.
When we talk about making sure that people have accommodation in the city area, naturally enough we would be looking at a public and private mix on that whole block when that whole block was looked at. We know that there are conversations going on.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .