Page 3052 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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helpful, practical and possibly not always popular decisions. We do not think this is an issue that an Assembly inquiry can do as a quick fix.
Another reason I have concerns about an Assembly inquiry is that the planning committee currently has before it two inquiries referred by the Assembly last year—that is, the inquiry into live events and the inquiry into inner north. We have not managed to finish those two, despite the fact that they are last year’s inquiries. We also, of course, have normal territory plan variation work to do.
I note with pleasure that, as a result of the sustainable futures project, the planning committee anticipates having a lot more work in terms of draft territory plan variations in the forthcoming months. Another reason why the Greens would like to see the government work as hard as it can and actually address this issue is that I am concerned that, with the other workload of the planning committee, if we give the job to the planning committee it will mean some months delay in resolution. In this case, as the government are already working on it, we should let the government do what they are going to do and then see if it is an adequate result.
One of the things that we have got in our motion is that the government will consult not just with the affected industry but with the community, because, particularly in terms of single house owners, that is where they are. They do not have any industry group to represent them. We have suggested to the government that what could be appropriate would be a notice on the community noticeboard. I think that that would be a very effective way of getting input from the wider community.
One of the questions that has been exercising our minds is how big this problem is. Clearly, this is a significant problem in some of the unit developments, but it is not clear how far that goes into single residences and how widespread the problem is in the industry. That is a key piece of information. Again, speaking as someone who is on the planning committee trying to get public submissions on issues which are very important, I know it is quite hard to get enough information. This is where the government is, unfortunately, in a better position than the Assembly to get information. The complaints go to ACTPLA they are in the best position—
Mr Barr: A very cynical view, Caroline. What do you mean “unfortunately”? We are fortunate to be in a position—
MS LE COUTEUR: It would be good if the Assembly had the resources of government, but, as a practical reality, it does not, and that is one of the reasons I feel that, in this case, we are best off letting the government finish its thing so it can report back to the Assembly in September. We can then give ourselves a couple of months to consider the issue, and my motion foreshadows that if we are not happy we will refer this to an Assembly inquiry.
One area I would say where it is very likely that we will not be happy—I do not have an idea myself yet what the solution is—is existing multi-unit developments and existing single residences which have problems which are greater than are covered by the current insurance arrangements. It would be great if the government comes up with some good ideas on that. That is one of the harder, intractable ones where I suspect there is a fair chance that an Assembly inquiry will be required.
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