Page 2195 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
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objected to the application will have the right to appeal against the decision to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Mr Speaker, having looked at how the approvals and orders system will operate, I would like to turn to examining the key features of this system. By establishing standardised procedures it will introduce a greater level of certainty and consistency into decision making on land use matters. Applicants will know the procedures, the criteria and the time limits which will apply to their application. Furthermore, the Bill creates a statutory framework which will accommodate and encourage administrative reform of approval procedures, so that the process can be simplified and streamlined.
The procedures specified in the Bill are also designed to improve the quality of decision making. In particular, two features of the system will lead to this: the approvals system will ensure that all interested agencies are consulted when an application is being considered and thus ensure that all relevant factors are taken into account by notifying interested parties of an application and allowing objections to be made to that application; and any objections will be considered before decisions are made, thus ensuring that decision making is better informed.
Finally, an integral component of the Land Use (Approvals and Orders) Bill is the mechanism it creates to achieve an appropriate balance between the powers of the executive arm of government and the creation of opportunities for appeal against the exercise of those powers.
By employing the Territory Plan to define the areas or circumstances in which third party appeals will not be available, a framework has been created which will allow decisions which involve the exercise of wide administrative discretion to be appealable. At the same time, decisions which give effect to specific standards or criteria specified in the plan may not be subject to appeal. Thus, both the proponents and the public generally will, through the Territory Plan, enjoy reasonable certainty about what kinds of decisions will or will not be subject to review on their merits before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Clearly there will be some administrative resources involved in the administration of these arrangements. The extent of these costs will depend substantially on a number of factors including the final form of the Territory Plan itself and the matters it excludes from being subject to third party appeal and therefore not requiring extensive notification processes; the extent to which proponents choose to apply to conduct activities which exceed the clearly stated thresholds in the plan or are in specified areas and therefore become subject to third party appeal; and the frequency with which the public chooses to appeal against such development decisions.
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