Page 5516 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (11.27): I rise to support this motion. I am really pleased that we seem to have a tripartisan approach.
Mr Hargreaves: Do you know where Erindale is—
MS LE COUTEUR: I do know where Erindale is, Mr Hargreaves.
Mr Hargreaves: because I’ll take you for coffee there.
MS LE COUTEUR: I have been there this year. I am really pleased that we have tripartisan support for the idea of better planning in the ACT and for master planning. Admittedly, I speak as someone who does not go to Erindale on a regular basis, but it seems to particularly need master planning.
I will start off by talking a little about Tuggeranong as a whole, following on from Mr Barr’s comments. Tuggeranong was planned a long time ago. Those of us who remember the Y plan know that Tuggeranong is the “Y” in the Y plan. You could say that Tuggeranong is the “Y” in the Y plan from a planning point of view. As Mr Barr said, it was planned a long time ago. At the time of the planning processes the car was not so dominant and we had a very different social system. The idea was that each family would have one breadwinner and you would locate your household in the appropriate area of Canberra so that the breadwinner could walk to work. The rest of the family would stay home. We were not meant to be totally car dominated. It was a very 1950s view of how families work. I guess we can say it has spectacularly failed and it is not how we run our lives at present.
I agree—as Ms Bresnan said in the original motion—that we need a more thoughtful approach to planning in Tuggeranong. Tuggeranong is a beautiful place in which to live. I have heard a lot about the restaurants there, which are great. I am a patron of the Turkish Pide. I must admit that I have not had the opportunity to eat at Erindale as extensively as Mr Smyth; there is a limit to how much a girl can eat.
Mr Barr: You’re more of a Dickson girl, are you?
MS LE COUTEUR: I am. I agree with Mr Barr; I am a bit more of a Dickson girl in terms of my eating. As a Downer resident, I am more of a Dickson girl. Speaking more broadly about Tuggeranong, it is a really beautiful place to live in a lot of ways. It is surrounded by the mountains. It has the Murrumbidgee River to the west, which has lots of swimming holes, and Namadgi is just next door to the south.
For the information of those people who ask why the town centre in Tuggeranong is where it is, because clearly it is not in the centre of Tuggeranong, it is because of environmental concerns about the Murrumbidgee River on the other side. Originally it was planned that the town centre would be in the centre of Tuggeranong. For anyone to say we have thoughtful planning in Tuggeranong, with the town centre where it is, it is not a proposition which can really be defended by anybody.
The other thing about Tuggeranong is that, according to our current beliefs and our spatial plan, we would not build it. It is simply a long way from the city. It is
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