Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

and I am sorry about that—I just want to note my participation in this inquiry and I want to thank the chair, Senator Lundy, and Senator Gary Humphries, who, along with other members of the committee, put a great deal of effort into coming up with a bipartisan report. There is no doubt that, at the beginning of this process, this inquiry was seen to some degree to be controversial within the ACT. However, Canberra is a very well-planned city, one of very few in the world that were planned from their inception. Of course, the Commonwealth had full planning responsibilities up until 1989. Self-government in 1989 has meant that since then we have had a dual planning process. It was very timely that this inquiry came along at the point that it did because, after 20 years, we really needed to look at dual planning, at duplication, at the removal of red tape and, most importantly, at the governance and administration issues that affect the NCA and their ability to carry out their work.

I want to thank the staff from the committee secretariat for the work that they did in pulling this report together and the wonderful work they did in collaborating with the members along the way. And I want to thank the members of the Canberra community who, through organisations or individually, took the time to put in submissions and to appear at public hearings for this very important report.

I suggest that anybody who has an interest in the ACT and Canberra as the national capital should read this report to understand as fully as possible the importance of a really good, proficient, proper planning process so that not only Canberra as a community but, more importantly in this regard, Canberra as the national capital has every possibility of continuing to be one of the most highly regarded planned cities and communities in the world.

The range of information and advice that the committee was able to take really meant that we could come up with a hard-worked-at but good product in the end. As I said, this is a bipartisan report. Its 22 recommendations go to the thrust of governance and planning work within the NCA, as well as to an understanding of the relationship between the federal role in the NCA and the ACT role through the ACT planning role.

As I said, we have made 22 recommendations. One point that needs to be made is that the committee found that the NCA has endured financial cuts that went far too deep, and that this has meant that the NCA did not have the ability to discharge their duties in ways that would assist in reducing red tape or to help make the organisation more effective and more role focused. I want to particularly make that point. That was the finding of the committee after hearing the evidence and listening to a broad range of opinions within the Canberra community that the NCA should be able to do its work. I am pleased that the recommendation is that the NCA will remain. It will have a slightly different focus in the way it is structured. And the Commonwealth is, by this report, suggesting that it has a continuing role in planning as well in the national capital.

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