Page 1580 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
off suburbs like Throsby. They want to knock off future potential suburbs in Kowen Forest. Is there anywhere they actually want to see development? When the Greens talk about sustainable development, I think they just mean no development—zero population growth, or the population going backwards. I guess we would not need any development if our population just kept shrinking. How exactly they are going to bring that about, I do not know, but these are the crazy policies that we now have from this Labor-Greens alliance. The Labor Party have been dragged further down this anti-development, anti-growth path by their Greens partners. It is a dangerous development, and we are seeing the consequences.
The Catholic school that was going to be at Throsby had to start again. They had to start again on a new site, and who knows how long that might take? We are assured that they will get it right this time, but for years they did not get it right at Throsby, did they? We are going to see fewer houses. So Canberra families will be saying: “Yes, we want sustainable development. Yes, we value our open spaces.” Do that, but do not stop providing housing choice to the community. That is what the Labor Party have done, and that is what the Greens have encouraged them to do. This Labor-Greens alliance will answer for that at the ballot box. They are anti family and they have made it so much more difficult through their planning policies for the community to exist.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (4.02): I thank Ms Bresnan for bringing this MPI on. It is of course a very important subject. I might start with some comments on the comments from the Liberal Party’s planning spokesperson, Mr Seselja, who started off by saying how transport to Gungahlin was not as it should be. I would have to say that the Greens totally agree that transport to Gungahlin is not as it should be. Our solution, however, would be different from the Liberal Party’s.
We strongly support the idea of light rail. I suppose I feel more passionate about this because this was one of the early areas of planning in the ACT that I was involved in. Mr Seselja may not remember this but when Gungahlin was first being planned, there was a proposal from private enterprise, the Village Building Company, to put in a light rail from Civic to the Gungahlin town centre. And that was going to be done at no cost to ACT taxpayers. I think it is one of the continuing disappointments of ACT planning, and particularly sustainable planning in the ACT, that this was not in fact put in place.
There have been, of course, many disappointments, but I will first, being a reasonably positive person, in the next little while try to talk about some of the improvements we have made in sustainable planning. In particular, over the last three years, due to the influence of the Greens, all new houses should be six-star energy efficiency rated and will have to use energy efficient hot-water systems. New house plans in Molonglo are being looked over by a sustainability assessor, and Molonglo house blocks have to be orientated fairly well from a solar energy point of view.
Our energy efficiency rating system is being better monitored and audited. We now have expanded urban wetlands which slow creek flow and help store non-potable water. We are really pleased about this, but there is a long way to go.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video