Page 5525 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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areas of the ACT. Getting transport right for an area like Tuggeranong will make it easier to get it right for the rest of the ACT.
Point (v) of my amendment talks about the need to redevelop the area around Gartside Street. When I first started looking at this area, some of it came out of concerns about security in the area. It has had a number of restaurants there for a long time, but a lot of people did not think it was worth going to because there were incidents of violence. There were certainly a number of break-ins and vandalism. Mr Hargreaves will remember debates earlier this decade about police response times and issues concerning that. We have moved on slightly from that, but it has not grown into the area that it could be.
The potential in this area is absolutely enormous to make sure that we build community. A couple of weekends ago, we had the Tuggeranong Community Festival, which has been going for some time. Indeed, Mr Hargreaves, you win the prize for going to Tuggeranong Community Council for much longer than I have. If you were there in 1989, you were there some time before me, so you get the long service leave badge first. Tuggeranong Community Council used to meet at Erindale and it was great because it was central for everybody and there was a hall available there. But it is no longer there; I think it has been redeveloped. It was very much a psychological heart as well as being the actual physical heart of Tuggeranong. I think—no, I know—that the opportunity that exists just in that will be great for Tuggeranong.
Something we have not talked about are the youth facilities that are there. PCYC is there, Gugan Gulwan is there, Erindale College is there, the library, the activity centre, the Vikings—so there is a great potential to make it a good place for our young people to go to as well, as long as we keep it safe and as long as we ensure that when we do the planning we design crime out of the area. Activity itself keeps crime away, so the more active we can make this place the better it will be. If we can get the street alignments right, if we can get the sidewalks right, if we can get the lighting right, if we can get the public visibility right, if we can get the right sort of charisma to the place, the oomph that it deserves, that will be a good thing for all of us as well.
I thank members for their support for my amendments. This truly is a great opportunity to make sure that we get it right for Erindale and it will lay the foundation for other areas that we will need to go back and look at—Woden, Weston, Belconnen and, years from now, Gungahlin. Hopefully, people will say: “Let’s make it look like Tuggeranong. We want to be like Erindale.”
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (12.03): I would just like to thank members for their contributions today and for their support. I guess we can say that there has been an outbreak of goodwill—not quite an outbreak of love but an outbreak of goodwill—which is good to see.
Mr Smyth: Tis the season to be jolly—
MS BRESNAN: Yes, that is right; perhaps it is that the Christmas season is upon us.
I thank members for their contributions and also for the amendments which have been put forward. Mr Smyth’s amendment does specify some areas, which I mentioned in
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