Page 5362 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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Page 12, line 35, add the following subclause:
"(6) Where a draft Plan variation has been revised the Authority shall cause to be published in the Gazette and on a Saturday in a daily newspaper circulating in the Territory that the draft Plan variation has been revised and that copies are available for public inspection.".
Of course, the credit for this amendment goes to Mr Jensen, as I made very clear before. The issue concerning the words "on a Saturday" is one that I raised with Mr Wood and his advisers, and we spent some time discussing this. They certainly presented some difficulties that they found with that inclusion, and I am sure that Mr Wood will present those difficulties to the house in a short while.
It seems to me, however, that it is very important for people who follow planning matters to have some idea of when and where things are going to be advertised. Whilst there are some inconveniences associated with that, I think it is a very reasonable thing to know, if you are interested in planning matters, that all you have to do is look in Saturday's public notices; it cannot sneak through on a Monday.
If you are interested in planning matters and you are away for a week, and you have heard that a variation is proposed for your area or there is word out that something is going on, there is no trick to it; you do not have to chase Gazettes; you simply have to get Saturday's paper. In the ACT, Saturday's paper has the widest circulation of any paper that is published here, within the definition of "newspaper" in this Bill. That is important, because that is the paper that will reach most people.
There is no doubt in my mind that that will not be 100 per cent convenient for the Planning Authority. The convenience goes much more to the public in this case. But it is important that we recognise that administration is there not so much for its own convenience but to try to make things convenient for the public, where at all possible. As I said earlier, I accept that that has often been the case in recent years with the Planning Authority. But this is an appropriate mechanism to include at this point.
The matter of advice in the newspaper comes up quite a number of times in the Bill. I think it is important that we have a consistent approach, and this Assembly now has the prerogative to ensure that that consistent approach will follow through, and that we will have public notices appearing on a Saturday - in the area where people go to look, if they are interested in planning issues.
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