Page 1659 - Week 06 - Thursday, 20 May 1993
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MS ELLIS (11.44): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think it is important for me to take the opportunity to put on record a little more detail of the consultation process that has taken place and which resulted in the presentation today of the report from the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee. As has been said by other members of the committee, this consultation process for the draft Territory Plan began back in 1990 with the release of a series of key issues papers by the ACT Planning Authority. These papers were initiated by the Planning Authority, as they recognised that there had not been any significant community consultation on issues of importance and significance to the community since the mid-1980s. Some 25 workshops were held to discuss those issues. The results of those workshops were documented in a report provided to all the people who participated in that process, as well as being sent to schools, libraries and the Government.
The Planning Authority needed to ensure that as many people as possible in the ACT community were aware that a major new planning system was in process of drafting and would be out for their public comment. Some 120,000 households in the ACT received a letter and brochure explaining that a new planning system had been drafted and would be out for consultation and that the authority was inviting, very enthusiastically, feedback on that documentation. Public displays were established; advertisements were placed to continue and enhance that information flow through to the community. In addition, a number of specific briefings were undertaken. During this time also, 1,500 copies of the written statement and the planning report were released; 750 people participated in seminars and workshops; and some 1,500 calls were taken on an information planning hot line established within the Planning Authority.
This consultation period for the draft plan ran for some six months from late October 1991 to late March 1992. At the end of that period, just on 1,020 submissions had been received, as both Mr Lamont and Mr Kaine specifically said. The Planning Authority, in recognising this Government's commitment to consultation, developed and set into place exhaustive mechanisms to ensure proper and deliberate registration and checking mechanisms in processing and looking at those 1,020 submissions. Those submissions were summarised and fed into that system. At the same time, the consultation output from the seminars and workshops was being analysed, and all this material was used to begin reshaping that original draft plan.
In order for those people who had prepared submissions to check the integrity of the Planning Authority's response, two indexes were prepared: An index of submissions and an index that indicated the way in which particular issues were addressed by the authority. Also as part of the legislative requirement for tabling the draft Territory Plan, a number of documents had to be produced, and they are displayed on Mr Lamont's desk. There was a report prepared on the public consultation process and its outcomes and, importantly, there was material on the response by the Planning Authority to submissions from the National Capital Planning Authority. All that material came to the Planning, Development Infrastructure Committee in December last. I take the opportunity to draw to members' attention the full list of the documents constituting or accompanying the submission to the ACT Executive on the draft Territory Plan, which appears on pages 1 and 2 of the committee's report. That list displays very well, I think, the background to the consultation process I have just outlined.
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