29 June 2011

Greens appeal to Anthony Albanese's better nature. Oh my splitting sides

| johnboy
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In a sweet gesture the Greens’ Caroline le Couteur has announced she’s appealing to the better nature of the warlord’s warlord, Commonwealth Transport Minister Anthony Albanese, in the hope he will relinquish some of his powers over the airport to the ACT Government.

“On a number of issues, from transport, to employment centres to supermarket competition policy, the Canberra Airport has become a mini Monaco which can pay no heed to planning goals or regulations.

“The airport has expanded recently to become a retail centre and an office precinct as well as an airport. These new facilities would be better at a town centre or on a local transport route. The growth at the airport has been at the expense of growth in Canberra’s town centres, in particular Gungahlin.

“The ACT Government has been forced to pay for extensive and expensive road works throughout the area to accommodate traffic increases as a result of the developments.

“It’s only reasonable that the Canberra community, who are affected by these developments, are able to have a say over their progress.

“I’ve taken the step of writing to Mr Albanese in order to alert him to this issue, and request that his department engage with the ACT Government in order to ensure that the Airport’s future development better respects the goals of Canberra’s planning and development framework,” Ms Le Couteur said.

I do like the Monaco line though, the Airport should do something with that.

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Gungahlin Al12:03 pm 29 Jun 11

johnboy said :

Sense yes, but expecting Albanese to do something from the kindness of his heart?

Sometimes you have to say/ask for something that is right, even when you believe that it won’t get anywhere. Because:
1/ Sometimes they will see sense and agree
2/ Others may base future voting on these positions and through influencing those votes you stand a better chance of improving things yourself in the future
3/ If you don’t there’ll always be some smart alec reporter claiming you’ve been silent on the issue therefore you must be useless.

Note this is a targeted strategy, and therefore somewhat different from opposition for the sake of being seen to oppose everything, a la Tony NoBot.

Im not sure it’s the Airport owners fault that the hub of FIVE major roads just happens to be next to their airport.

Pretty sure that planning occurred prior to any redevelopment by the private owners.

Sense yes, but expecting Albanese to do something from the kindness of his heart?

I hope in the letter is something about getting his teeth done and seeing a speech therapist!

What Caroline has said makes sense. We have three planning frameworks in the ACT and only two, NCA & ACTPLA work together so their planning rules do not conflict. Roads ACT will be forced to spend our money on decisions made outside the ACT Govt. Thanks to the Howard Govt we have an operator that has carte blanch at Snowtown. ACT citizens have no consultation or rights to object.
The ACT Govt will be blamed for the traffic congestion and lack of a bus service.

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