Page 5587 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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Mr Barr: No, they are at district level. They are all at district level now.
MR SMYTH: There we go. We are building 4,400 new homes, two suburbs, no ovals.
Mr Barr: But there is no organised sport played at neighbourhood level. It is at district level now.
MR SMYTH: I appreciate there are ovals at the district playing level but in this case your policy is removing—
Mr Barr: Yes, and that is where organised sport takes place.
MR SMYTH: You have just confirmed that your policy is removing the oval from Crace and the oval from Casey. You have just confirmed that, that they will be gone.
Mr Barr: No. You read my speech.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Barr!
MR SMYTH: They will be gone. Now you have just confirmed it. You have interjected across the chamber and you have said that all the ovals, all the places where a club might have a sporting fixture, will now be at the district playing areas. They are not in Crace and they are not in Casey. And that is all I have said right from the start. I have said they are taking away the ovals.
Ms Le Couteur says, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” Never let the facts get in the way of a good rebuttal, because that is what has happened here today. You should go and read it if you have not read it because that is what it says. The ovals are going. We are actually putting more people in these suburbs. (Time expired.)
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5:08): Briefly, there are a couple of things that have become clear during this debate. One is that this is what happens when you have a planning minister who is not in control. We are getting a different message from hour to hour, it seems, on the actuality of this situation.
Mr Smyth has again clarified what this technical amendment does. The minister, in his interjections, has been all over the place. But it would appear that he is now confirming that, as Mr Smyth has highlighted, there will not be a requirement for an oval. And if Mr Barr wants to get on the record that actually there will and he can point us to where there will be a requirement for an oval in these suburbs, we welcome it. But it appears that Mr Smyth is 100 per cent correct that the oval requirement is gone as a result of this technical amendment. And that is worth noting—the significant increase in density and the taking away of this formal playing field space.
The broader issue—and we saw it from the Chief Minister’s contribution—is that we are getting a feeling now not just from industry but from senior planners, from people in this system and from people within government that it is a shambles. They are
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