Page 3892 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010

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I note Ms Le Couteur is proposing an amendment to my motion. I will comment on her amendment during the debate. But the time has come for a review of the Kambah Village precinct, in much the same way that, for instance, the Jamison centre has been refurbished. And we may recognise that there may be pressure on resources to undertake such a master planning project but would suggest the relevant priorities be established and that the planning for Kambah Village be started as soon as practicable.

The problem with this—and I am aware, and the minister and I spoke about this last week but unfortunately the motion did not get up last week—is that the government does plan some maintenance work for the village. But we also know that at the same time the supermarket in the shopping centre, Woolworths, has some interest in expanding. We have got the government’s supermarket policy on the table, as it were.

At the same time, as Mr Hargreaves would know, having been seen occasionally at the Burns Club, there is activity on Kett Street. And that is having an effect as well. We have had a number of restaurants there that have come and gone. We have now got some development there of residential accommodation, and that is important too.

Just beyond the entrance to the Burns Club, there is now the refurbished scaffold, which the ACT Scouting Association have set up as their art centre for the scouts, which I think we all support. But it is, again, the very nature of the whole precinct, which is that Kambah is growing like topsy and changing, that if we are able to enhance it, if we are able to do a master plan and work consistently now for something better, we will get a long-term outcome for the Kambah Village which will be good for Kambah. That will be good for Tuggeranong, which of course will be good for the entire city.

Short-term measures in this case may see some ad hoc work being done to buildings, perhaps the enlargement of the supermarket, some other residential being put in place, so that when you do a long-term plan it might not get you the best outcome that we can get. And, given that once these things are built it is very hard to move them in a short time frame, it is important that we get this right.

Over time, I have called for a master plan for Tuggeranong. To give Mr Barr his due, he said yes, after Mr Corbell had said no for some time. We called for—and I think Mr Hargreaves in particular would remember many of the meetings at the Tuggeranong Community Council under the old management, where the whole issue of what was happening at Erindale, particularly the service station site and what will happen on the other side behind the Mobil service station where we have now got quite an interesting restaurant precinct—that work to be consolidated. We called for it for Erindale and, again, the government initially said no. Congratulations to Mr Barr and the Greens for coming on board with that one and getting that motion up. That was well done.

But it is time now, for what is probably the third most important of the group centres for the Tuggeranong Valley, the Kambah Village shops, being the northern gateway to Tuggeranong, to actually get it right and make sure that, instead of doing some ad hoc work in the short term, we do some good planning, ensure some great


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