Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-05-12 Daily Xml

Contents

MINDA INCORPORATED

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:07): Arising from the minister's answer, is he ruling out further protection for the secondary dunes via a development plan amendment or any other means?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (15:08): The development plan amendment that was introduced back in 2006 was specifically to do that. I would not propose to rezone land belonging to Minda for some other purpose without talking to them. I think it would be fairly outrageous if I, as a minister, were to try to rezone land that was owned by any institution or individual without discussing it with them first.

The honourable member wants us to protect a whole lot of other land owned by other people, but he is saying that in this case the government should come in and make arbitrary decisions. That land is owned by Minda. They have a community service obligation to deal with their land in a community-sensitive way, but they also have an obligation, obviously, to protect those people who are dependent on them.

Nobody has put the proposal to me—and they certainly did not at the time—that the development plan amendments we made were inappropriate. As I understand it, on that secondary dune area where this proposal is to build buildings, there are already some buildings in that particular area. As I said earlier, I have not inspected the site, and I am not overly familiar with that part of the site, but certainly no proposition has been put to me to rezone that area. If we were to do that, it would have a significant capital value impact on the land that Minda has, and that is not the sort of action, I believe, that anyone would take capriciously.