Page 3509 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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I am also confident that all those who have contributed to each round of consultation will acknowledge that their contributions have progressively been reflected in significant improvements in the overall quality of the legislation, in terms of its policy focus and operation. As I mentioned earlier, all sectors of the ACT community can rightly claim ownership of this legislation. I know that some sectors of the community will argue that the Bill is still too complex and should be streamlined. The Government recognises that there will be opportunities to further streamline and finetune the Bill, and this will happen over time. Nevertheless, we need to acknowledge the extent of streamlining that has already taken place.
There can be little doubt that the ACT's single Bill is a significant improvement on the array of comparable legislation in any other Australian State or Territory. For the first time it brings together in the one place virtually all of the legislative provisions relating to planning and land management in the ACT. The equivalent legislation in other States is scattered through between 10 and 15 separate Acts. This contrast is made even more apparent when we compare the 286 clauses and 134 pages of the ACT's single Bill with around 750 sections and 550 pages of the equivalent New South Wales legislation. Our legislation is an extraordinary achievement.
I should point out also that the various suggestions from the second round of public consultation have resulted in the further streamlining of the legislation. Specifically, provisions relating to heritage objects have been removed and reconstituted as a separate Bill, which I will also be presenting today. This addresses the issue that "heritage objects" was the only part of the legislation that did not relate to land.
All other parts of the legislation dealing with heritage, including places and Aboriginal heritage and objects intrinsic to particular places, remain as integrated components of the Land (Planning and Environment) Bill. Additionally, the Government has removed from the Bill the provisions relating to the proposed Planning Advisory Committee. We have taken the view that there is no justification in that committee having statutory functions.
I would like now to turn to a number of substantive matters which have arisen during the course of the development of this legislation. Several of these, as I mentioned earlier, have resulted in amendments to the Bill. Firstly, the issue raised most often during both rounds of public consultation was the need for greater predictability in the ACT system of planning and land management. The argument is, essentially, that the ACT will have a Territory Plan which will be developed in consultation with the community, approved by the Executive and subject to possible disallowance by this Assembly.
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