Page 6214 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991
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There is nothing in the amendments to the casino Act that removes the requirement for public consultation on any changes to the Territory Plan as suggested by Mr Jensen.
I do not know how well each and every one of us understands the English language; but if I am told that there is going to be a casino there, that there is going to be an interim casino somewhere else, and then I am told that there is later going to be consultation, I think it stretches the English language. I will put it at that level, simply, at this stage. I am quite sure that better minds than mine are going to examine all of this minutely and very carefully. I will only point up those matters at this stage.
The Federal legislation overrides what you seek to do. In this Casino Control (Amendment) Bill you seek to override sections 8 and 9 of the Interim Planning Act. Those sections, essentially, adopt the injunctions put upon us by the Federal Government, the overriding injunction that you cannot walk away from in the PLM Act. Sections 8 and 9 provide the guarantee during the hiatus required by the Federal Government before the land Act and the Territory Plan, proper, come into effect. We do have a plan now; it is the amalgam of all those instruments that exist, and I will not go into it. The fact is that this Bill seeks to remove sections 8 and 9 of the Interim Planning Act, which were placed centrally in that Act following the enjoinder put upon us by the Federal Parliament, drafted at a time of unprecedented planning turmoil in this city.
I say to the Assembly that what you are doing is ultra vires the Federal Law. I say to you that you cannot provide for a vacuum in planning by way of a provision of this nature. The provision that troubles me, of course, is the provision in the Bill before the house which, in effect, acknowledges that sections 8 and 9 of the Interim Planning Act stop Ministers and any Territory authority from acting inconsistently. You are removing that injunction that has already been passed by this Assembly. You are removing it and you are saying that we are not going to be bound. That provision is in clause 9 of the Bill before the house right now and it is headed "Effect on Territory Plan". It states:
"127A.(1) Sections 4 and 39 -
that is, the ones that leapfrog the process and place a casino on site, and a temporary casino too -
have effect notwithstanding sections 8 and 9 of the Interim Planning Act 1990.
I believe that the Government should answer this and seek some advice from its lawyers. I may be wrong. I have not the capacity or the - - -
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