Page 5574 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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I think that is probably the main purpose of this; to specify when a preliminary assessment is required in connection with different classes of proposals. It is very complex, and how can somebody out there in the community know when a preliminary assessment is required and when it is not, if we do not promulgate this information in some way? I think that is the problem. If the Minister can explain how we can get around that, then I would opt not to include this schedule, on balance.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.14): The schedule of the draft Territory Plan will guide the Minister in making the decisions he will be making under clause 112, the one immediately preceding this one. It is that schedule that will be the guide and that process also allows that degree of certainty that we have been seeking, for all people, in that period of transition. It is a difficult period and that process that I have just described - with respect to Mr Jensen - is, I think, a better process than the one that he is seeking to impose here through this amendment.
MR JENSEN (5.15): I accept the comments made by Mr Kaine, Mr Wood and Mr Moore in relation to this and I accept that what I did in this amendment was not necessarily the best answer. But I guess I will use the streaker's defence - it was the best idea that I could come up with at the time in the time available. I am pleased to note that Mr Wood has indicated that he will be using clause 112 to decide what is required, and that he will be using what is effectively this schedule, because it came from the Territory Plan, to assist him in making those decisions.
However, I would also like to pick up the point that Mr Kaine made in relation to the need for certainty between when this legislation takes effect and when the Territory Plan finally comes into place. It seems to me that, in this case at least, it may be appropriate for the Minister - and perhaps I have done it in a somewhat lengthy form - to provide some form of determination or some form of document, which is, in fact, tabled in the Assembly and made available to the general public and the community, setting out what the Minister considers to be those areas for prescribed classes for defined decisions.
I accept that we do not necessarily need all this information; but I would be encouraged if the Minister could give an indication that he will provide some information, and probably table it in this Assembly, to give a lead to the community and the developers in the ACT as to where we are going to go in this very important area of the requirement for mandatory assessments. I have already made the point that in the Federal legislation there is so much prescribed that you might as well not have the legislation. The legislation is just a series of
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