Page 4998 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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The basic principle of the land and planning package as originally stated by Ms Follett, as Chief Minister, and as restated by Mr Kaine, as Chief Minister, is to provide a planning package that provides certainty, that removes the confusion in the existing ACT arrangements and, above all, is transparent. It is to provide a system where the community can see the decision making process in action and where the community is reassured that the decision making process is being properly complied with.
That reassurance will come about by a comprehensive system of environmental assessments of proposed changes to the plan, or proposed approvals, and by a comprehensive system of appeals so that a member of the Canberra community can be assured that, if there is to be a major change to the plan, there will most likely be a very satisfactory and very thorough series of environmental assessments. There is a sliding scale that is in the draft legislation. The system provides that the citizen, at the end of the day, has a right of appeal, a right to test the decisions of the Planning Authority before an impartial tribunal. That is a very desirable system that has support across the floor of this chamber.
When we are considering this Interim Planning Bill, we are really taking the Government on trust. This Bill is a blank cheque, because it gives the power to change the Territory Plan with none of those assurances that are to be contained in the legislative package that has the unanimous support of this Assembly.
This is a planning Bill, absent any environmental assessments and inquiries legislation and absent any third-party appeal legislation. It would be possible, with this planning Bill in place, for a Territory planner to make radical changes to the plan as we know it with no possibility of meaningful public input. There is certainly provision in the legislation for consultation. As we all know, legislative provisions merely for consultation lack teeth. Legislative provisions which merely say that a plan will be prepared and shown to the community will only allow community outrage and will not allow the community a meaningful way of involving themselves in the decision making process.
As I say, there is no provision for environmental inquiries and no provision for appeals. With this Bill in place, it would be possible, for example, for the plan for the Acton Peninsula to be recast to provide for high-rise condominium development. The Canberra community could do little but man the picket lines, because there is no provision for environmental inquiries and there is no possibility of third-party appeals.
I note that the Chief Minister has given assurances that this Interim Planning Bill is being introduced purely for the purposes of avoiding a break in continuity and avoiding a planning hiatus. He has given assurances that it will be
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