Page 1568 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 April 1991
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I happen, Mr Moore, to know personally, quite well, the president of that organisation that made its submission in the first round of public consultations. From the various discussions that we had - in fact, I seem to recall that we had a discussion on the day of Mr Harrison's funeral where we actually discussed these issues - I am sure that that organisation would have decided to come before the committees if it felt it necessary. I just thought I would put that matter on the table because we did, of course, receive a number of submissions from various groups and organisations, such as the Conservation Council and BOMA, for example, who also conducted seminars for discussion within the community. So, it was not as if the issue of the planning legislation was not out in the public arena and being debated.
Let me now start to comment briefly on some aspects of this report. The first aspect is the title, and I will briefly cover that. The committees indicated that we thought it was appropriate to add further to the title so that it was quite clear that the legislation covered more than just planning. The consultation process was one aspect that did give us some concern. While it was quite clear that there was sufficient time for the consultation process to take place - that is, the total consultation process on the Bill since the first set of Bills, as opposed to drafting instructions, was tabled back in February 1990 - a problem was caused in a way by the fact that that first lot of legislation was tabled over a period of time. I think the committees agreed that it probably would have been much easier if that legislation had been tabled in one bunch, and I think that probably would have removed some of the confusion.
Of course, the Institution of Engineers also made some comments in relation to the aspect of insufficient information in relation to the Bills, particularly in relation to additional guidelines. As the report has clearly indicated, the guidelines that they were referring to are just that - guidelines - and are not appropriate for inclusion in the actual legislation itself or even, in this particular case, in regulations. But I will come to regulations a little later on.
One other concern, of course, was the fact that we received a report from an independent group of solicitors from outside of the ACT, which I thought was quite appropriate because it was probably not a bad idea to have a fresh view on the legislation as it stood, as opposed to looking at it from a very close point of view. We all know that sometimes if you are too close to something you do not actually appreciate fully what you are looking at. It is better, I think, sometimes to step back and take another view. That is why that was probably appropriate, and I support the fact that that consultation was undertaken.
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