CHARACTER PRESERVATION (MCLAREN VALE) BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendments.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I believe the standing orders would normally require us to go through these provisions one by one and deal with them separately. I am happy to do that.

The ACTING CHAIR (Ms Thompson): They can be done en bloc, particularly if the amendments are associated or consequential.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am in the hands of the chamber. Whatever suits members is fine by me. In terms of having, perhaps, some general remarks about it, I understand that some members of the opposition have a wish to make comment about this legislation, and it may be that some government members do, I am not sure. I am entirely relaxed if members would prefer just to talk about whatever it is they want to talk about first, and then we deal with the more technical approach to the thing; or whether we just go through it in a technical way—I am entirely relaxed about either of those courses of action.

The ACTING CHAIR (Ms Thompson): Perhaps if I call on No. 1 and, providing people do not go on forever, I will be fairly generous in terms of what they are saying and assume that they are talking about the package of amendments. Will that work?

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No.

The ACTING CHAIR (Ms Thompson): It must relate to the amendments to the bill, in fact, there is that slight limitation according to standing orders.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: My offer is intended to be made on the basis that, if they have a go now, we will not get to hear it all over again as we go through the passages because that would not be cricket, really. Anyway, I will take you at your word, and we will proceed in that less formal fashion.

Amendment No. 1:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendment No. 1 be agreed to.

In so moving, can I talk in general terms about this and try and explain what has happened? This legislation began over 12 months ago. The original bill was a far more, in my view, sophisticated bill, and I would have preferred that bill to have been the one that we ultimately passed. However, in an attempt to provide some degree of greater confidence to communities, in effect, the bill has been simplified, to the point where we now have a very much more elementary bill.

Now that does not mean that there is anything wrong with it, it just means it is a simpler bill than the original version. The primary object of this legislation is pretty simple: it is to say that in respect of the areas which are the preservation zones—and there is a map which accompanies the bill which is going to be legislated—people can get on with their normal activities and can do pretty well whatever they can do now, except that if they want to subdivide land for the purposes of, in effect, housing, they have to get the approval of the parliament to do that.

Aside from that, there is no interference in their activity. The reason for this is to actually protect these two areas which are now quite proximate to the metropolitan area of Adelaide from incursion by urban sprawl. So the idea is to protect the McLaren Vale region in the south from further incursion so that it retains its agricultural and rustic character and, likewise, to protect the Barossa Valley in the north, which is already really very close to areas of development such as Gawler and proposed areas of development such as Roseworthy. That is the fundamental thing.

The townships themselves are basically untouched and they continue to be regulated in the same fashion as they always have been. There are a number of amendments which have come to us from the other place and there is some interplay between some of the government amendments and some of the opposition or Independent amendments; that is, in some respects some of the government amendments are a response to amendments moved by others. I guess to make that a little clearer, if some of the other amendments go, I do not need to pursue some of the government amendments, if that makes any sense.

It is probably useful for me to say that most of these are relatively minor matters, and I do not want to waste too much time now on them, but can I say that, in my view, the amendments moved by the Hon. Mark Parnell are not helpful. If they were to be passed, they would create a very strange anomaly in the whole planning and development system in South Australia whereby the particular townships within the preservation zones are completely different to townships everywhere else in South Australia.

The whole object of this legislation has been basically to leave those townships completely unaffected by this legislation and for them to be able to do whatever they want to do using their current governance arrangements and for that to be an orderly progress of the existing things. The Hon. Mr Parnell's amendment would create this peculiar anomaly in our planning and development law whereby a couple of townships like McLaren Vale or Tanunda or whatever would be in this unique, anomalous, strange position from a planning point of view. With the greatest of respect for him, I do not think that is justified nor is it consistent with the whole approach of this which has been brought back to me several times of making this as light a touch as possible. In other words, interfere with things as little as possible, which is where the government has wound up. As I said, the Hon. Mr Parnell's amendment is not consistent with that objective.

The other thing I wanted to say briefly is that in the run-up to this legislation coming before the parliament and in order to circumvent the possibility of people attempting to get around the legislation by being quick off the starting blocks, we put in an interim DPA to stop people rushing in to try to get subdivision applications on before this could actually be dealt with by the parliament. I want to say to members here today that in the benefit of hindsight the original interim DPA which was used as a preservation tool was a little bit too crude. It was not as elegant and sympathetic to the requirements of landholders as it might have been, and I have acknowledged that before and I acknowledge it again. However, we have rectified that in consultation with communities and, as soon as this legislation has gone through, then the work of the interim DPA will be done anyway and it will be an unnecessary tool. Then we will see the regime essentially returning to what it was before the interim DPAs were deemed necessary.

My desired position is that the legislation passes minus Mr Parnell's suggested amendment and we get it proclaimed as quickly as we reasonably can. We can then lift the interim DPA and everything will basically return to normal in the Barossa Valley and in McLaren Vale, the only difference being that those areas will be protected from urban sprawl, and the people who have an agricultural lifestyle, a rural lifestyle, in those areas will be able to continue with that in the confidence that it is only by the agreement of the parliament that their lifestyle will be interfered with in the future.

That is basically the position. Can I say that along the way also, a number of people have been of great assistance. The officers of my department have been very helpful, patient and thorough in relation to this work, and I congratulate and applaud their efforts. The member for Mawson has been a long-time proponent of this type of measure and has tackled me vigorously on many occasions to put his point of view. Whilst I have not always appreciated it at the moment that he tackles me, because it can be vigorous, he has been a fierce advocate for his community and I congratulate him on that.

To be fair, the member for Schubert has asked me questions several times about what is going on here too, and I know he has an interest in his community. Hopefully today is a happy occasion, so I do not want to make too many storm clouds, but I have to say that attempting to negotiate with the Barossa Council was an education for me, and I think perhaps I will just leave it at that.

As I said, I am happy for members to speak as they wish about this, and we can get on to the nitty-gritty bit later. Just to foreshadow, I might just make this clear: not necessarily all of the government amendments will be pursued, because some of them are interrelated with propositions which were advanced by people other than the government, so there is a bit of parrying going on here potentially. With those few remarks, I am happy to listen to what other members have to say.

Mr WILLIAMS: First of all, I just want to correct one thing that the minister said in his opening remarks a few minutes ago, saying that the legislation began over 12 months ago. This matter began prior to the last election, when the Hon. Robert Brokenshire in another place proposed—he had a different name for it—that we legislate to protect the Willunga Basin against development. The Hon. Robert Brokenshire, being the former member for the seat of Mawson, has long argued that particular case. There has been a long and ongoing debate about this.

I was interested in the minister's comments that the amendments of the Hon. Mark Parnell in another place would create, I think he said, a strange anomaly, where the towns within the preservation areas would be treated differently and become quite different from the towns in the rest of the state. My personal view is that the whole bill—and the other one, which I understand we are not addressing today, the Barossa Valley one—is going to create an anomaly, where one particular parcel of the state is going to be treated quite differently from the rest of the state.

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: No, I am talking about the rural area now, the preservation area, excluding the townships, yes, though I understand the townships will be treated the same. It is my personal view that planning law is very difficult to develop and very difficult to administer. This only makes it more difficult because, as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all of us would like to think that our little corner of the world might stay the same forever, and that is what I think is driving this particular piece of legislation.

The reality is, I think, we have as a state made huge mistakes over the years. Some of our most productive agricultural land is now buried under houses and development right here on the Adelaide plains, so I can understand the motivation to do this. I am not quite sure about picking out two areas, albeit that they are iconic in the minds of many South Australians, and maybe the minister might say, 'Well, look, this is just the start of a much wider process to protect.' I do believe that we should be conscious of protecting our valuable agricultural land in this state, and not just land that has aesthetic appeal.

I think one of the things that came from the decision of BHP Billiton not to proceed immediately with the development of the Olympic Dam expansion is that even this government acknowledged for the first time in its 10-year existence that agriculture is and remains an important part of the state's economy. As we continue to see agricultural land converted to housing—and it is considered very good agricultural land that we are losing generally in and around metropolitan Adelaide—we are doing ourselves as a state a disservice. As I recall, one of the best ideas that I think Don Dunstan came up with as premier of the state was to build a city at Monarto.

Ms Chapman: The other one was to resign.

Mr WILLIAMS: The other one was to resign! I always admired the idea of building a city at Monarto because it would have, I guess, allowed us not to build houses on a lot of that valuable land which has been developed since the seventies. It would have allowed us not to convert it to housing and to have left it to its earlier use of growing vegetables, fruit and valuable crops on that really valuable land in and around Adelaide and on the Adelaide plains in particular. It would have utilised land with much lower value for agricultural purposes for housing but, of course, one of the few good ideas that that premier came up with, he walked away from, unfortunately. That is my opinion.

Minister, I have been asked on behalf of the shadow minister to put to you a question which I am hoping you will be able to put on the record. This has been brought to my colleague the Hon. David Ridgway by a number of people. Your colleague in the other place made this statement, and I am asking whether you will confirm that this is the intent of the government. On 18 September, minister Gago stated:

If these bills are passed by parliament, subject to the advice of the DPAC, the government will return planning policy to the position that existed prior to the bill's introduction; that is, if the landowner had an ability to seek approval to construct a dwelling outside townships or rural living areas, that ability would be reinstated. By the same token, if a landowner had property where, prior to the introduction of the DPA, a dwelling was noncomplying, then the policy position would be reinstated.

The question is: can you confirm that, following the assent to the bill, those pre-existing rights would be reinstated? The minister in the other place talked about the dwelling; I guess it would be other development as well. Can you confirm to the house that those pre-existing rights would be reinstated and, where there were no pre-existing rights, no new rights would be created by the bill? That is the extent of my contribution.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Shall I respond to that now—

The CHAIR: Yes.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —otherwise we might lose track of things? In relation to the comments made by the honourable member for MacKillop—first of all, I thank him very much for his comments on it—can I say that his priority about protecting agricultural land is one that I share and that the government shares. If we had the ability to be able to rewind the clock, I think all of us would—

Ms Chapman: Cancel Adelaide.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, I think that's going a bit far. You are an advocate of big Kingscote; I know that. You think that the biggest error that was made occurred in 1836, when they kept going. They should have just—

The CHAIR: The minister should get back to the topic.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Sorry; I was thinking about the old mulberry tree and everything else, but back to Adelaide. Prime agricultural land is a really important issue. I think it is not only a practical issue but one the public genuinely have a strong feeling for—not just people who live in the rural parts of the state; I think that people in the metropolitan area also have a view about this. The member hinted that maybe we would look at other things. The reason we have done this is that these are the two prime agricultural areas that are so proximate to the city that they are under imminent threat. At the moment, the—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The city cannot go west because it gets very wet; the city cannot really go east because we have the Hills Face Zone; and, courtesy of this legislation, this city cannot really go much further south, other than areas that have already been designated. There are small areas in the south that are left, relatively speaking, to be developed because they have already been rezoned—but not many. This is preventing the city drifting off to the north-east and colliding with the Barossa Valley and everything the Barossa Valley stands for in terms of agriculture and its value as a part of South Australia's culture, history and identity.

If these measures go through and settle as I anticipate they will, I think that, in the fullness of time, we may have a discussion about whether this type of approach is going to be of value elsewhere—but that is something down the track; I do not have any view about that presently. If this all works well, and it receives general support by the community, there may be a call for doing it somewhere else. Obviously, the economic pressures, when you are as proximate as the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale are to the City of Adelaide, are different from the economic pressures in Cowell, Wudinna or beautiful Millicent.

In relation to the member's specific question, the problem that some people have encountered in these two areas, about feeling like they cannot put up a shed or they cannot do this or cannot do that, as I alluded to in my earlier remarks, was a consequence of the interim DPA, which was put in there as a prophylactic measure, I think the term is, to stop things happening.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Prophylactic? It is a word of general application, and certainly in that context it was. That has already been refined somewhat in order to take into account concerns expressed by people in communities. I can say that it is my intention that, once the legislation is passed, we will be able to revert to the pre-existing regime, and that would mean, to be quite particular about it, that, if prior to this legislation being introduced, you owned a parcel of land and you were able, under the then existing planning regime, to make an application to put a building on it—or any other activity, for that matter—you should have the opportunity to continue to make such an application, as you always did.

Having said that, it is a part of the intention of this legislation that there will be, after a period of time, a review of the planning regime in these areas, that would be done in conjunction with council, and that review may or may not subsequently recommend some other changes. I do not know; I have no idea. The review has not even happened yet. In terms of the legislation, I can say quite clearly that it is my intention that, once this is passed—and I sincerely hope it will be—everything will revert to the situation that applied previously. The only thing that will be different is that, in the rural areas of those preservation zones, it will not be possible for a minister—the Minister for Planning—a council, a landowner or anybody else to subdivide for residential purposes.

Aside from that, they will be able to completely get on with their lives as they previously did. If it was previously impossible to build a house on a block or it was a noncomplying thing or it was going to be a merit-based approval process, that is exactly what will apply in the future.

Ms CHAPMAN: I was delighted to hear the minister's indication that he wished to proceed on the basis of general comment and then specifics. I took that as an offer rather than an invitation to treat and he can, of course, receive my statements as an acceptance of that, so I hope he will listen to that contractual obligation to listen attentively. I am very disappointed that this bill has come back to our parliament without significant amendment, in particular, the proposal by the opposition that ministerial DPAs should not be able to be applied in the broadacre areas. Be under no illusion, members of this house, the purpose of this bill is political.

Firstly, the minister (who was, I think, then the minister for tourism as well as the Attorney-General and the Minister for Planning—it has got another combination now), wearing three hats, went out there to tell us about the importance of the character of two districts in South Australia and his intention to replicate and cherrypick all the good bits of South Australia and continue this in the future. He was going to save these particular regions from these rapacious acts of development and, in particular, save our tourist areas and our productive rural areas. What utter rot! He was doing this as a political move to try to prop up the members in those areas, and I will be referring to subsequent acts that have been in total contradiction of this.

The other thing that occurred is that the government itself acted in a most unacceptable manner toward the people and district of Mount Barker. Members will only have to read, as I have, the well over 100 submissions that were put in through the periods of consultation on these two bills, which have been published, unlike some others that we had to go to the District Court to get hold of.

In any event, in this area, we have had some very interesting submissions. Dozens of them, one after another that I read, displayed the distress of people who saw themselves as the victims of an invasion by the government that completely dismissed local government autonomy and local people in the Mount Barker district. So they were putting submissions in on this bill, sometimes to support it, because they saw it for what the government were presenting it as, namely, some protection against the rapacious acts of invasion by this government, given their form on Mount Barker.

So, let's be under no illusion here: the public had been beaten up in relation to that region—certainly in the two regions that have been the subject of this bill and another, which is apparently on its way from the other place—because they wanted to have some protection. But the way that this could have been dealt with is for the government to say, 'We got it wrong. We will not come in and steamroll local government legislation. We will act cooperatively with them. We've got the power in this parliament to set rules in relation to planning which we can implement.' But, no, they came in bulldozing that regime in these areas, because they had acted unconscionably themselves. That is why we are here.

Be under no illusion: this is nothing to do with food production. That's rubbish! When did this government give a tink about food production in this state? I would have to go to the list about what they have done in that regard. These are the urban playgrounds for the rich, and that is what this government wants to support.

Let me just say this: not only was there a complaint about the conduct of the government, but the model which they were proposing to introduce, which they modified—and the minister has indicated some modification of that—clearly was a clumsy, blunt, expensive model that was going to be imposed upon the people of these regions with complete disregard for local government.

There has been some argy-bargy, there have been some negotiations. The local government think they have clawed back a bit, so the deal was struck. That is what actually happened. When the 30-year plan of this government came out, remember the first version? The first version was that they were going to develop 100,000 residences in the north of the metropolitan area—100,000—which encroached into the Barossa region. After some outrage about that they modified it a bit and took it back to, I think, 30,000 in the final plan.

My point is this: this government do not give a tink about the people who live in the encroaching area into the Barossa or the encroaching area into McLaren Vale—could not give a toss about them. They were prepared to put 100,000 people up there in the Barossa Valley, and now they come in and say to us, 'Oh, we care about these people, we care about the people in the McLaren Vale region.' Hello? They have just developed the extension of the Expressway, the electrification of rail, they still have on the books the Noarlunga to Aldinga development of transport—all very good projects; we've been supporting them. Why? Because major development is being proposed in those regions.

And why do we know that? Because they are out there. The boundaries have been drawn around them. There are major areas of development which will increase the significant population of these areas. So don't come and tell us about caring about the productivity of an area. If they really cared about that they would say, 'No more.' But, oh, no, no; they have cherry picked the bits they wanted to develop, and they have said, 'We're going to have these nice green vineyards and little paddocks with little sheep and little grapes in them, and they are going to be pretty to look at, and we're going to have lots of little cottages with little geraniums in their flower boxes.' That is what we are talking about. I mean, really, what absolute rubbish when they come in here and tell us they care about food production.

And why do we know that again? Why do we have this reaffirmed again? Just listen to what the Premier said yesterday. Six years ago he was in here, as the then minister for housing, debating the housing affordability bill with me, talking about the importance of urban infill, of consolidation of housing, of renewal of housing in areas of Port Adelaide (of course, that has bitten the dust), of major areas of development within metropolitan Adelaide, and the importance of having affordable housing, blah, blah, blah. I know that I spoke for 7½ hours, and I would love to today, but I will not, you will be pleased to hear.

But what I will say is this: in terms of all this stuff about how important it was to have consolidation, he has cherrypicked out a bit of central City of Adelaide since then, jumped on a good Liberal idea of our leader and said, 'Yes, we do need to add some people to the metropolitan area,' and, of course, in the last budget he announced the free stamp duty on buildings. I noticed in the Gazette the other day that he has whacked up the open space levy by hundreds of dollars per unit. Does he think we are stupid or that we do not understand, that when they rob from one side they give it to the other? Jack Snelling must be sitting there thinking, 'Oh, beauty. Money is coming in. We can offer them these peanuts and we're going to take the whole tree.'

I will get back to the point. The point is this: the government claims that they give a tink about these regions. Not only are they building infrastructure to them but they announced a policy yesterday that is going to promote housing in greenfield sites. There is no question about that. Apart from giving themselves stamp duty options in the central part of Adelaide, plus Bowden conveniently, which of course is a government development, they have redefined what was the new home owner's scheme, whacked down the amount available for support to those buying existing homes and thrust up in a massive way the opportunity for new home buyers. This is irrespective of whether you are a first home buyer or not. How many people will be lining up to get this money? Not the little kid in the hut that is in The Advertiser cartoon today, but I am talking about people who have the money to be able to buy units or houses for their children. What a nonsense.

Yesterday's announcement has moved the direct priority target to the development of new housing. Obviously we all know why: because the housing and construction industry is on its knees. We know why the Premier announced it, but here is the rub on this: the reality is that what is going to happen is that the development of greenfield sites will not occur in the Gulf St Vincent because, as the minister has quite rightly pointed out, you would get a bit wet out there. It is not going to be on the Hills Face Zone because there is a law against it. It is going to be in the south and in the north.

They come in here and try to pretend that they actually care about the preservation of the historical character in relation to the opportunity for food growing and the development of tourism potential. They do not care about that. They are building infrastructure to the end of both of these areas and they announced policies as late as yesterday which are designed to absolutely push the population out into those regions. I do not accept that for one moment. If they were really serious about saying, 'Well, okay, even if we made a mistake with Mount Barker, we will make sure this doesn't happen again; we are going to protect these regions,' would you not think that they would be the first to come into this house and say, 'We agree that there should not be ministerial DPAs in this broadacre area.'

What is going to happen with this formula or this piece of legislation that has come back without significant amendment, apparently except for some from the Hon. Mr Parnell from the upper house? What will happen is that the legislation will have an adverse impact on the people in these regions, there will be a further crushing of the responsible role of local government in these areas, and the government will continue with policy developments and decisions which are going to invade these regions. They will completely undermine what they claim is their interest.

The final thing I will say is this: I did not hear much in this debate about heritage. I noticed that the government, along with other brilliant decisions, has removed 'heritage' even from the title of the department and minister for environment and natural resources. Heritage has disappeared. These people do not care about heritage. They do not care about food. They do not care about the responsible role of other levels of government. They do not give a tink about those. They care about trying to cover up a major problem that they created. If they had the guts to admit that, they would be able to say, 'We got it wrong. We will respect other levels of government. We will respect people and we will get rid of the ministerial DPA power in broadacre.'

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am not stopping any other contributor but, as always, the member for Bragg's contribution is so rich with material that I will lose my place if I do not respond straightaway, if everyone is comfortable with that. Again, subjected to more biffo from the member for Bragg. We had quite a lengthy discourse about Mount Barker. Of course, this is not about Mount Barker. Mount Barker is actually to the east of here and in this particular instance we are talking about the south of here.

The honourable member, as always, is never constrained by the actual topic of the debate. I have a number of regrets in my life, as most people probably do, but one of them is that I have never actually practised in the same jurisdiction as the honourable member. I have a view that if it were to be the case that we ever wound up being in court in a matter, I think it would be quite an experience—certainly for me. The range of topics that witnesses might be invited to comment upon, I suspect a number of objections from me on the basis of relevance, hopefully some—

Ms Chapman: I'm pretty sure I'd win.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: In your jurisdiction that may well be the case, because I do not pretend to be an expert in matters on which you are well known to be a very eminent person. I think we would have some fun anyway, and I hazard a guess that the judge would call you to order at least occasionally. I am going to come to watch you one day just to see if my suspicion is correct; just to sit up the back and learn.

However, back to the topic. North and south: it is true that, to the extent that the government, in the 30-year plan and otherwise, contemplates there being a role for greenfields development, that greenfields development will occur predominantly in the north and the south, but actually more in the north than the south. In fact, if you look at the maps associated with this particular bill you will see that all we are actually doing is leaving the already rezoned precincts down in the south as development options and basically sealing off the south as a corridor of further expansion.

So there is an effective stopper being created by this legislation in the south preventing the City of Adelaide going any further, because you will have the eastern part protected by the Hills Face Zone and the southern part protected by this legislation. In fact, I think the honourable member is well aware that I consulted extensively on this. I believe the honourable member wrote to me early on in the piece, because I think some of her constituents were potentially being involved in this.

She wrote me a very nice letter and said, 'Look, my constituents are very happy not being in your zone; would you please just leave them alone?' Given that they were already in the Hills Face Zone anyway and that if we ever get to looking at that they are logically to be dealt with in a different group, I took on board the suggestions the honourable member made, partly because they were meritorious and partly because I was afraid of what she would do to me if I did not. I did take those on board and they were removed, so there has been a genuine consultation about this.

I make this point, and it is very important: it is anticipated in the 30-year plan that we will actually be putting 70 per cent of new dwellings within the existing footprint of metropolitan Adelaide, and only 30 per cent will be made up by greenfields development. At the moment those figures are actually reversed; at the moment we are doing infill of only about 30 per cent, and 70 per cent is greenfields.

I think that for a couple of reasons the honourable member can rest assured that her fears about Adelaide being a sprawling mess are certainly not part of my policy. The first thing is that we have discovered, through the process we went through with the City of Adelaide, that you can actually do substantial rezonings to accommodate much higher density in consultation with local government. The Adelaide City Council, to its credit, warmly embraced—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Maybe they have their reasons; nonetheless, they embraced the rezoning. I can tell members that the plan now is that within the next few weeks we are going to move to the rim councils and that—

Ms Chapman: About time. You've been keeping that secret for a year.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I know. The honourable member interjected that it was about time. I agree that it is about time, but I decided that it was appropriate to wait until we had bedded down the centre of the city before we started making requests of people on the city perimeter, otherwise we would have had a doughnut sort of development, which is not really a desirable outcome. The honourable member is quite right, it did get slowed down. It was slowed down by me because I did not want to have a doughnut; I wanted a city where the middle was rezoned, and then we started rezoning out. However, I can assure you that that is within weeks.

The other thing is that, if there is anything the honourable member can do to assist me in negotiating with a council that seems to be a major part of her electorate, I would be most grateful for her advice. Without mentioning anybody in particular, they do at some point intercept with what we call the rim, and so far—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, maybe. So far, that particular council appears to be—what was the word Paul Keating used to refer to—

Ms Chapman: Recalcitrant.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, recalcitrant. They have been a bit recalcitrant—well, actually, very recalcitrant. If there is anything the honourable member can do either to assist me with those people or even advise me as to what technique I might employ to get anywhere with them, I would be genuinely grateful. However, leaving them aside, Unley has been really good. We have had really useful talks with Unley, with West Torrens and with the small intersection there, with even Charles Sturt. Prospect has been great.

Ms Chapman: Norwood.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Norwood has been fine. They have all been good. So I anticipate that we are going to be able to deliver substantial rezones in that area in a cooperative fashion, and the trade-off we are going to try to offer those communities is: 'You give us higher densities along the parkland verge, along Greenhill Road, for example, and then back from there, where we have what all of us would regard as character suburbs with some of those magnificent buildings that make Adelaide so special, we would be able to protect those areas from two-for-one infill, which is actually the most dangerous form of development from the point of view of character.

I imagine sometimes that I have won X-Lotto and that I can afford to live in the honourable member's electorate, and I think of those beautiful streets. I have never actually been there but I have seen postcards and I have seen it on television: beautiful streets with plane trees or jacarandas. I imagine myself there in November or December when the jacarandas are flowering and there is that beautiful purple haze in the air, just wandering down those beautiful footpaths, looking at these character bungalows and lovely wide driveways. Some of them are so big, I am told, that you can drive in one side of the front and then drive—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, hang on, you are not paying attention. You have come in half way. Just settle down.

Mr Marshall: Well, the first half wasn't that interesting.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Settle down. At least you have put your tie on; that's good. The threat to those beautiful homes is that Joe Bloggs, a developer who buys that home, realises that it is on 1,400 square metres or 1,200 square metres and thinks, 'Goodness me, under the present guidelines, I can bowl this piece of Adelaide history down and put up three two-storey Tuscan somethings and sell them off and make a lot of money.' What is that doing to those beautiful streets, and what do your constituents think of that? I do not think they like it. My point is—

Mr Marshall: It's the state government's code.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Just get with the program before you start interjecting. My point is this: part of the offer to the rim councils is that, in exchange for providing for high density around the perimeter of the city, those areas of the council which have street after street of these beautiful character homes can be protected from the two-for-one or three-for-one infill, which is actually the risk to those precincts of the city and a risk to the city in terms of losing character regions. Of course, that concern does not apply to every part of the city because, for example, in much of my electorate there are not a lot of those homes.

Ms Chapman: Have you visited it lately?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: And there is not an anxiety—in fact, I was there on Saturday; a street corner meeting, as a matter of fact. So different parts of the city have different qualms. My point is that there is an enormous potential for urban infill partly through medium and high-density building—

Ms Chapman: You have to fix up the Britannia roundabout.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That is one of the many things on the list.

Ms Chapman: Good.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: But we are in a position where we are looking to find higher density; we do not want sprawl. This legislation is absolutely sincerely dedicated to the protection of the character and the amenity of these important parts of the city. I can indicate to the honourable member that we are being very cooperative with the other place today and most of what they have sent us we are gratefully receiving, and we will be accepting it. I will leave it until right at the end to tell you the specific news about what we think about particular things.

Mr Marshall: We've got to sit here and interpret things.

The CHAIR: The minister will address the Chair.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, I am sorry, Mr Chairman. I was distracted by the member for Norwood—who is apparently not in his seat, either. I think that is the best I can do in responding to the member for Bragg.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

[Sitting suspended from 12:57 to 14:00]