Page 4653 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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These policies are based on the main premise that planning decisions in the ACT should be made in open forum. Provision for community participation from individual neighbourhoods to forums within the Territorial Planning Authority ... will be our priority.
So, those who claim to have invented NAGS, or what have you, have lost sight of the history and the work that many good citizens of this Territory, across the political spectrum, did towards a community consciousness that surfaces today in a Bill providing for a more open planning process, a planning process that provides real appeals on the merits, not just appeals on formal legal points. (Extension of time granted)
When we look at the legislation before the Assembly, we see that it is compact and that it is in two pieces of bound paper. There is another history to this Bill, and I believe that someone should put some remarks on the record. I refer to the work done by the successive government law officers and draftspersons to bring it to fruition. As my colleague Mr Kaine knows, it started off as several pieces of paper. Under direction, it was consolidated into two Bills, and during that process the status of the drafting was constantly questioned by well-meaning politicians and great pressure was placed on those drafting it. On 12 May 1990, as Attorney I informed the Chief Minister that the drafting of the Land and Leasing Bill, as it was then called, was well advanced and that three draftsmen were currently engaged in preparing it. A draft of the Approvals and Orders Bill had already been provided to instructing officers.
Great credit for these reforms goes to those legal minds who converted our political instructions into the Bill before us today. This Bill was quite properly described by consultants Dunhill Madden and Butler as well advanced in the Australian context, and my colleague Mr Wood mentioned that in his presentation speech. I am pleased to see that recognition. The Law Office submitted its work to a private consultant for overview, at my request, supported by my colleagues in the then Alliance Government. The outcome of that process will require further refinement, and we should not overlook the fact that all substantial legislation of this kind will require ongoing, detailed attention.
I recall Mr Connolly, in making one of his earliest comments in this Assembly, describing the package as confused, all over the place and somewhat obscure. Those comments were made while the draftspeople were battling against the odds to get the legislation together and to interpret the at times conflicting messages coming from the coalition Alliance Government. We had differing views on
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