Crispin Hull

Whenever statistics or budget figures come out, the Northern Territory always has the lowest or highest in any state or territory of whatever is being measured. So it was at the weekend when the conservative side of politics got a higher percentage of seats (80 per cent) than in any state or territory. The Northern Territory is unusual. It is different. The political swing at the weekend’s election in of little national moment and should not be extrapolated nationally.

Bizarrely, Labor actually picked up a swing of about one per cent but has lost as many as four of its nine seats. The old House had 14 Country Liberal Party, nine Labor and two independents. The new House is likely to have 20 CLP and five Labor.

One thing the election shows is how inappropriate the single-member system is in a small territory. Mercifully, the ACT does not have it. If it did, the ACT, too, would be swamped by a major party, in the ACT’s case, Labor.
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The ACT Landlords Association has called for the introduction of quarterly assessment of land tax, saying the present system is unjust.

The president of the association, Peter Jansen, said yesterday that under the present system assessment for the whole year is determined according to the state of the dwelling on July 1.

So if a tenancy ended on July 2 and the owner moved back in, the owner would have to pay land tax for the whole year.
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Rates will remain about the same in real terms under budgetary measures.

Residential rate payers are likely to pay slightly more in real terms and commercial rate-payers slightly less.

The average increase for residential rates will be $26. New properties would add 2.4 per cent to rates revenue.

The total value of land in the ACT rose 4.4 per cent, the value of existing properties rose by 2 per cent.

The land tax rate remains the same, but total revenue will increase with increased property values.
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It is like the war with viruses and bacteria. Whenever the medicos come up with an antibiotic, the virus and bacteria mutate and build up an immunity. Stronger anti-biotics then have to be developed and so it goes on. Who will give up first the microbes or the chemists?

It is the same with hardware and software developers. As soon as the hardware gets faster and the hard disks larger, along comes a software writer to take up the extra capacity, pushing it to the edge. So hardware developers bring out even faster and larger capacities to handle the software.

No hard disk ever seems big enough.
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The planners issues chocolate freckles to the community groups taking part in the planning of Gungahlin Town centre.

It was not a cynical sweetener along the lines: “”We’ll give you a few lollies and we’ll go away a do precisely what we like.” No; it was an analogy of the planning sought by most of the people involved.

Freckles are those little chocolate bits with hundreds and thousands on them. They are highly clustered with a high density of mixed use (green equals open space, yellow equals community facilities, orange equals residential, blue equals commercial, pink equals retail and white equals parking). The are on a human scale.

The contrast is with the other Town Centres: Belconnen, Woden and Tuggeranong, and to a lesser extent Civic.
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The draft variation for Gungahlin may be a splendid exercise in town planning, but there is an underlying weakness of ethos.

The plan may be a splendid improvement on previous town centres in creating a pleasant retail and living environment, but where is the wealth creation?

Housing and retail dominate the thinking about Gungahlin, as they have the other townships.

The aim in Canberra was always to have a lot of employment generated locally to avoid peak traffic flows into the centre of Canberra.
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The draft plan for Gungahlin Town Centre, radically different from Canberra’s four other town centres, was made public yesterday.

The centre will serve a population approaching 100,000 in the next 30 years _ the largest of Canberra’s townships.

Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, presented the draft variation to the Territory Plan at a public meeting in the Assembly building. There will be six weeks of public consultation and an Assembly committee hearing before it becomes officially part of the plan.

The 140-hectare centre is between the suburbs of Ngunnawal, Harrison, Palmerston and Franklin bounded by Gundaroo, Mirrabei and Nudurr Drives.
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Gambling in the ACT will hit $1 billion for the first time in 1994-95, according to calculations from Budget figures and information from the ACT Revenue Office.

That is $4800 per adult.

The big recipients of the Canberra gambling dollar are: poker machines $700 million, the casino $160 million, the TAB $107 million, lotteries $35, bookies $2.8 million.

The Budget figures reveal the ACT Government will get $48 million from gambling.
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About 250,000 Australians have replaced commuting with telecommunications, and the number is expected to swell to two million by 2005.

This is a finding by Goanna Communications is a report published last week.

On its face, it means a lot of profit for computer and phone companies. However, it is more complex than that, according to John McNaull, technical director of Gonna.

“”The benefits will not happen automatically,” he said.

Most of the factors affecting the growth of telecommunting were under the control of policy makers in business and government and needed a co-ordinated development plan.

Technology alone was not enough to get the environmental, cost and other benefits. Retraining and new thinking by managers were required. Changed transport and environment policies were also needed.

McNaull pointed to a major market for IT vendors, especially intelligent networks, video-conferencing and workgroup software.
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A redevelopment firm which says it has complied with all planning guidelines for seven townhouses on a Forrest block fears its plans will be stymied by residents’ action.

The firm, Scott Brothers, has also been held up with another redevelopment in Old Red Hill.

Residents, however, say the character of their neighbourhood is being changed.

Michael and Chris Scott said yesterday that they had complied with all the guidelines and proposed a quality development building on only 35 per cent of the 5120 square metre block with all the latest energy-efficient designs. But they had not been given approval and had been called in by planning authorities for further changes.

The ACT Chief Planner, George Tomlins, said the plan at present did not meet the requirements that the development must be compatible with the scale and character of the area and changes would be sought. Details had yet to be worked out. Residents’ views would be taken into account if necessary by calling a meeting of residents.
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