Page 319 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 December 2016
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In suburban development, we will also sharpen our focus and our dedication of resources in our efforts for the development of new suburbs. As the city continues to grow, we will need to continue to develop vibrant new suburbs in greenfield locations. In doing so, we need to recognise that the issues of sustainability, engagement and place making are equally relevant, even if they look a little different, in new suburbs. Making new land available in places people want to live, at prices they can afford, will remain both a challenge for and an absolute focus of the government in the future.
There is nothing unique in those challenges for the ACT, though. We will look inside and outside the territory for better ways to sustainably deliver welcoming new developments that offer housing choice at an affordable price to buy and to rent. Whether through englobo sales such as we have seen in Denman Prospect, joint ventures like Crace or Ginninderry, or complete estate development, there is a role for the government in developing land and in providing choices for people who want to build new houses in new areas.
The time is right for us now to create a new entity with absolute clarity of role, of purpose, with appropriate accountabilities and responsibility. This entity will act commercially but again deliver on social, environmental and economic imperatives. It will have its own leadership structure, including a board to direct and guide this critical function, which will be properly held to account for how well the entity performs.
Canberrans, quite rightly, will want to know what this process means for them and how they will be involved and affected. I have talked previously about the importance of having more comprehensive, more inclusive and more meaningful engagement with the community about major projects in our city. We need to bring the community into the conversation early and trust the community with the information about the trade-offs, the commercial realities and, importantly, what is up for discussion and what is not. Here, we are talking genuine engagement with a truly representative sample of the community about how the vision for the city and its new suburbs can come to life—a truly representative sample of the community. That is what we are seeking in this engagement process.
It is absolutely critical to public confidence and trust in the work of ACT public sector agencies that their operations are conducted properly and are open to scrutiny. As I said yesterday, governance frameworks do matter. They are useless if they remain documents in folders that are never opened or become an end in themselves, wrapped in layer upon layer of box ticking. It is through the application of a governance framework every day and in every transaction that the operations of an entity can be reviewed and tested, and the people responsible for its operations can be held properly to account by their minister, by this place, and by the broader community.
Ultimately, in designing a governance framework for a public sector entity, the aim is to set it up so that it can properly do the job assigned to it by the government of the day. This is why the government is creating two entities, focused on two particular tasks, with their own boards and their own leadership structures. We will need absolute clarity of purpose, powers and the functions for the new entities, as well as
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