First of all, a big thankyou if you are reading this and you were one of the many people that attended our rally that we held today in front of the Legislative Assembly in Civic Square. We know it was not the most convenient time or location so we appreciate your efforts. Best of all, the weather was fine and we all had a great time.

Our spokesperson, Rodahn Gibbon, opened the rally shortly after 12pm and provided an overview of where we stand today. The Canberra Technology City's Tuggeranong site's power station remains, despite an announcement by ActewAGL of a 500MW "mega" gas-fired power station to be constructed approximately 20km south of Canberra in Williamsdale.

We reiterated our previous calls for the power station proposed in Tuggeranong to be relocated away from residential suburbs and also the call for an EIS - a full independent and expert Environmental Impact Statement. The scale of this proposal, being a class A development would normally require an EIS as part of the application process. However, in this instance the proponents felt that the technical reports provided as part of the mandatory Preliminary Assessment would be enough to get approval through, so they decided not to commission an EIS at the outset, despite community concerns.

Inside the Legislative Assembly, the debate was held with respect to a no confidence motion brought against the Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, for his appalling handling of the power station debacle and for pushing the proponents towards the broadacre site within 1km of residents, in order to free up short to medium term industrial land for lease.

Outside we heard from candidates, MLA's and representatives of other community groups that had joined us to share a common theme: lack of community consultation. To that effect, we released via our website the Hume Industrial Planning Study - a confidential report that has been withheld from the public which shows the extent of the plans to re-zone the broadacre land to industrial use. This is despite constant claims that the land will not be re-zoned - of course this also raises the question, what other studies exist for other areas of Canberra? We know that the plan for the Canberra Technology City's second site at West Macgregor, near Belconnen, is also to include a gas fired power station as confirmed by documents tabled by the opposition during the no confidence debate.

As we receive further details and analyse the freedom of informartion documents we have received, we will release that information to the public via this website. Extensive correspondance occurred between many Government agencies including the Chief Minister's Department, Land Development Agency, ACT Planning and Land Authority, Environment and Resources, Territory and Municipal Services etc. as they were all called upon to comment on the Hume Industrial Planning Study which included details of the original planned location of the gas fired power station in Hume, when it was released in draft in June 2007. The report was finalised in September 2007, including statements that the data centres are a low employment opportunity adding to the reasons to move it out of the Hume industrial area and in to the Tuggeranong broadacre horse paddocks.

Watch this space.