Page 478 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014
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visionary design of Constitution Avenue that perhaps goes back to the time of Walter Burley Griffin and has been talked about many times since. I look forward to those works getting underway and, more importantly, being completed.
When it comes to the issue of renewable energy, which Dr Bourke has also mentioned in his motion, I think that the large-scale option which seeks to meet the ACT’s 90 per cent renewable energy target will, again, lead to new infrastructure developments in the territory and some outside the ACT as well. But I am relaxed about that. I think we very much do operate in a region and I do not think that works taking place just across the border should be seen in a negative way. I think it is a positive for our region and also a positive for the ACT in sourcing clean green energy for the future at what I believe are going to be very competitive prices that will insulate this city against future price increases.
Renewable energy also provides an opportunity to develop resilience in the ACT grid. The decentralisation of energy supply means that the sorts of issues that even arose in the context of the 2003 bushfires—the fact that the ACT only has limited connection to the national grid—are ameliorated. With a decentralised energy supply some of those issues are ameliorated. I think that growth of infrastructure, be it large-scale private works or personal infrastructure on individual roof tops, will all help provide energy infrastructure to this city which will improve our resilience.
Dr Bourke has mentioned the Riverview development in his motion and I would like to make a few observations on that because I think it is a very interesting evolution in development in the ACT. The Greens have had some reservations about greenfield developments in outer areas in the sense that they create dormitory suburbs where people potentially are living some distance from necessary amenities with a potential for things like transport poverty to arise for residents of those areas.
However, from what I have been led to believe from the discussions I have had with the developers and from the documents I reviewed, Riverview does promise to be a different type of development for the ACT. For a start, the planners of Riverview have brought ecologists and biodiversity specialists in from the outset to ensure that they are protecting and working with the biodiversity that is on the site, not seeing it as a problem to work around but rather seeing it as the natural asset that it is and incorporating it into the development.
I think this comes from the owners of the land understanding the site and having a real appreciation of the proximity of it to the Murrumbidgee River. I think many members have already been out to the site and have a real sense of just how close it is to the Murrumbidgee and the integration that development is going to need to have with its surrounding environments. They are also planning for community gardens to be incorporated into the plan. They are planning to ensure that people can use active transport to connect them to the ACT’s existing public transport network and to access existing facilities in west Belconnen.
Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is an unusual practice for suburban developments. I certainly hope that the ambition and the vision that has been set for Riverview are
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