Page 3686 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 20 October 1993

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MR MOORE (4.21): Madam Speaker, I was just reminiscing with Mr Cornwell about when we used to discuss planning issues in the old NCDC days before Mr Wood was involved in planning, although he was certainly around as part and parcel of other community issues. At that stage, and even long before that, I was advocating a cheap and accessible appeals system as part and parcel of redoing our land planning systems. It is with great delight that I congratulate the Minister for getting this Bill and bringing it on today. It seems to me that the Minister has developed in this Bill a system that will provide an appropriate opportunity for people to have their appeals heard in a reasonable way.

Madam Speaker, my first experience of dealing with a planning appeal was an involvement with an appeal relating to the Canberra Times site. It was also the first time that I had ever had formal involvement with courts. I lodged an objection under the City Area Leases Ordinance, as it was then, and was required, as it turned out, not only to lodge an objection to the court but also to lodge the objection to the solicitors representing the proponents of the development. Madam Speaker, I did not do that. I was not aware that there was a court rule that required me to do so. Because of that I was eliminated. I was eliminated from that matter on what I still perceive as a legal technicality. There was no question that that was the court rule. I did not abide by the court rule; but, as an outsider, those court rules are particularly complicated and particularly difficult to deal with.

When the Law Society approached me this morning and suggested that there were some difficulties with this Bill, they found somebody who had a fair resistance to their ideas. They, in turn, used another example, Madam Speaker, that recently went through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. They talked about the outcome of that and why legal representation was necessary for a commercial enterprise. In fact, I had been involved in that one as well, assisting in terms of their objection somebody who could not afford legal representation and felt at a significant disadvantage to those who did have legal representation. So they were not likely to win me on that account either.

Madam Speaker, it seems to me that what Mr Wood has proposed in respect of representation before an appeals board is a very good test. Proposed section 282W of the Bill allows people to have representation on these three grounds:

(a) the complexity of the matter to which the proceeding relates;

(b) the age or state of health of the party; or

This is probably the first time that something like this has been attempted, certainly in the ACT and probably in Australia. Under these circumstances I think it may well be that we will need to check those tests. It may well be that we will need, in due time, to develop them further; but it seems to me that this is a very reasonable and sensible way to start. I have spent some time thinking about how I could improve them and, at this stage, have not found anything else that I believe ought to be in there. It seems to me that what we are really looking for is a simple process - one that can be dealt with very quickly, and one that can

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