Page 5007 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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actions they were taking to establish their National Capital Plan. In fact, it is essential for this Interim Planning Bill to cover the period between the end of the transition period - whenever that is - that is provided for in the ACT Planning and Land Management Act and the commencement, at some future time, of our own planning and land use legislation. We expect that to be about May-June of next year. We are making sure that everything possible is done to get the legislation in place by then. I reiterate, as I have said many times before, that it is a very comprehensive set of planning legislation, more comprehensive than anything that has been done anywhere else in Australia. It is important that we get it right.
We were even criticised earlier this evening because we brought forward a few minor amendments to a minor Bill that we had on the table earlier. Mr Connolly and others seem to expect us to put this very major and very comprehensive piece of legislation on the table and then come back and amend it later. That seems to be the attitude that they are taking. I believe that, for the Government's part, it is necessary to get the legislation right from the outset, rather than put it on the table, have it inaccurate, have it incomplete and then have to come back later and amend it. I would prefer to get it right the first time. I believe that Mr Connolly really supports that approach.
While the Commonwealth may legislate to extend the transition period until May 1991, it is likely that the National Capital Plan will be approved and the end of the transition period, in fact, will be proclaimed before the end of this year. We cannot sit and do nothing. It was envisaged, when the Commonwealth legislation was put in place, that the ACT Planning Authority would have been established by the time the transition period had ended, allowing for continuity in our planning processes. That appears now to be unlikely. We wish to make sure that continuity is provided. In keeping with our commitment to full community consultation on the planning and land use legislation, draft Bills in the package will not be finalised for introduction into the Assembly until after the second period of public consultation which I referred to, which is due to conclude, I expect, by about the end of February, at which time that legislation will come to the Assembly to be enacted.
If legislation is not enacted now to establish the ACT Planning Authority and the transition period ends, there will be a gap of some months during which the Interim Territory Planning Authority will be unable to release a draft Territory Plan or to vary present policies. We have already started the process of getting the Territory Plan into place. We have already released a number of discussion papers on various issues which will influence the shape and the content of the Territory Plan. That will all stop if we do not establish the Planning Authority as a permanent body so that it can legally continue with that process.
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