Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The National Capital Authority, as anybody who has observed ACT planning over a period of time will note, has been something of a political football. Headlines have regularly been generated around its activities and its role, and questions about the planning of the city, particularly in its national capital manifestation, have been very much argued over and fought over throughout the years. Yet, as Senator Lundy has noted as the chair of the committee, what the joint standing committee has produced in this case is a unanimous report which is designed to attempt to take a step away from that divisive and acrimonious approach to the planning of Canberra. I think it is because all the members of the committee saw very clearly that it is a nonsense to have a single, relatively small city of 330,000 people or so run by two separate planning systems which are in conflict, or perceived to be in conflict, with each other. It was the view of the committee that some better way needed to be found to ensure that the city was planned in a way which did not pit the national capital role and the community of Canberra role against each other.

I also commend to the Senate and to the government the scheme which the committee has put forward to attempt to resolve that very difficult problem. The committee has essentially recommended that we attempt for the first time to integrate the two planning regimes. We have two plans: a national capital plan and a territory plan. We have two planning systems around those two plans, and we have two planning authorities administering each of those plans. We have not proposed the integration of all three of those components or elements but we have certainly suggested that there be a single, integrated planning document with clear boundaries between the two areas of planning responsibility. We suggest that planning responsibility be aligned with ownership of the land—where the Commonwealth owns land, essentially it should have planning responsibility for that land and, where the ACT government owns the land, it should have planning responsibility. Those who are familiar with the present system would know that that, unfortunately, is not the case—that there are areas of territory land which are effectively controlled by the Commonwealth and vice versa.

We hope that this is an opportunity to realign those planning responsibilities and to establish a clearer, more workable system of running a national capital with the values that Canberra clearly has, and the chair has talked about those values. I expect that this would involve—as this process goes forward—some retreat by the NCA geographically speaking away from some areas of the territory which it has had primary planning responsibility for in favour of the ACT government. But the report strongly suggests that that be achieved by ensuring that the ACT planning process builds in very strongly those national capital values which are so important to the planning of the whole city. In a sense, those values imbue the planning of the city from the top to the bottom of the territory. It is not just about the Parliamentary Triangle; the whole city is an example of fine, world-class planning, and those values need to be understood and adopted by each planning authority no matter what its actual responsibility for particular geographical areas might be.

I also want to touch on the question of the cuts to the NCA’s budget. The inquiry heard persistent and loud complaints about the effect of those cuts on the operations of the NCA and the capacity of the NCA to plan a world-class city in those circumstances. We saw a combination of the increased efficiency dividend and quite specific cuts to the NCA resulting in some very serious and concerning developments. We saw that public facilities—like the Carillon, Blundells’ Cottage and the National Capital Exhibition Centre, which is where people get a sense of what the planning of Canberra is all about—have been adversely affected by those very serious cuts. We were told before the cuts were implemented—indeed, we were told before the last election—that there were inefficiencies in the way in which government ran those areas, that their structures were top-heavy in their administration and that overlapping responsibilities between the federal and territory planning roles would account for an amount that could be saved in terms of rationalising that role. That was all found to be essentially bunkum. What the report found is that there were serious compromisings of the capacity of Canberra to be planned well by virtue of those cuts. Particularly, the committee focused on the $46.3 million cut to the Griffin legacy project, which has a huge impact on the planning of that northern part of the Parliamentary Triangle which abuts Constitution Avenue. I welcome very strongly the committee’s encouragement to the Commonwealth to restore those funds. That would be crucial to the capacity of the ACT government to be able to make decisions about the planning of that part of Canberra in a proactive and effective way into the future.

I must also say that claims which have been made in the past about the National Capital Authority being some kind of political tool, particularly of the former government, were claims that were not substantiated or borne out by this inquiry. The evidence—and it was very strongly asserted by the NCA itself—is that it always made decisions on the basis of what was best planning practice, not what was dictated by political masters. It is true that the committee has recommended that the board of the NCA should be restructured: it should be larger and it should be appointed in a more transparent way to reflect particular skills in planning and design that need to be present on a board like that. It also recommended a need to have a more national focus, with people from outside the ACT, but the committee did not find that the board had been previously used as a political tool and that this process needed to end.

I want to finish my remarks by saying that one of the possible by-products of this inquiry was that the Chief Executive of the NCA, Ms Annabelle Pegrum, chose to announce her retirement during the inquiry. I want to say that it is perhaps not very helpful at this point in time to reflect on the circumstances which might have led her to make that decision, but I will say that I think her legacy to the NCA was one of enormous quality. She had held that role for a number of years, through a number of different chairs of the NCA. The commitment and dedication that she brought to that role as a practising architect are reflected in the quality of so many things that the NCA was able to achieve. I do not want this opportunity to go past without being able to record the great contribution she made as the Chief Executive of the NCA to the high-quality national capital that we see around us today. Many things happened during the life of the previous government to enhance the vision of Canberra, and the NCA was responsible for the delivery of most of those things. The tribute to her, the success of her contribution in that role as CEO, is the great national capital we see around us, particularly with those enhancements.

I want to indicate that the committee unanimously felt that there should be a world-class national capital in Canberra and that the planning authority should be resourced to maintain the excellent planning values of the city, and the NCA was affirmed in this process as the custodian of those very high-quality values. We did not find, as some thought we might find, that the NCA should be replaced or subsumed; we affirmed the role of the NCA. I think that members of this place would do well to focus on the need to make sure that this body is capable in the future of delivering the kind of high-quality national capital that all Australians should be proud of. I think that the effect of the recommendations made by the committee will be that there is a strengthening of that role by the National Capital Authority. If we remove the tensions and friction which have been characteristic of the relationship in the past, we will certainly achieve that goal into the future.

Question agreed to.