Page 1938 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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The Belconnen Community Council, in taking up the issue, questioned the fact that there appeared to have been no community consultation and formally sought a meeting with the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning to see the details of the proposed residential development for the land in question. An officer of the department indicated to the Belconnen Community Council that public notification and community consultation was not required for the proposed development as the land use for the area in question included residential; so a variation to the Territory Plan was not required, and the application for a lease variation was not made under the Land Act. While not required to do so, the officer agreed to informally discuss with the Belconnen Community Council what was proposed.
Madam Speaker, I was most intrigued to hear that the provisions of the Land Act, which require a high degree of transparency for lease variations, did not apply in this case. After further research I found that the Land Act did not apply as a result of the provisions of the Land (Planning and Environment) (Consequential Provisions) Act 1991. I will explain this as follows. In Part III, "Repeals", section 24 repeals 78 Acts, including the Leases Act and the City Area Leases Act in all their forms, with all of these repealed Acts being listed in Schedule 2 to the Act. In Part IV, "Savings and Transitionals", subsection (1) of section 26 states:
Notwithstanding section 24, a repealed Act shall continue to apply in relation to -
(a) an application made but not determined under that Act before the commencement day; and
(b) the review by a court or other tribunal of a decision in relation to such an application.
The commencement day was 15 January 1992. This section, which could mean that applications are still being determined under repealed legislation in the next century, is the section which this Bill seeks to amend by introducing a sunset clause so that, after 30 June 1995, all applications for lease variations are determined under the Land Act.
To gain a clearer understanding of the facts applying to the application for a lease variation at the Kippax centre, I sought a briefing from the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning in late March. It became clear during this briefing that this application, which included the grant of some additional land, had been in process for some years under the provisions of the City Area Leases Act. This view was later confirmed by the Land Planning and Appeals Board, which advised the Belconnen Community Council, when they sought a review of the Kippax decision, that there was no right of appeal to the board as the application was made under the City Area Leases Act 1936.
What was more interesting to note in the briefing I previously alluded to was the fact that, prior to the Land Act, no specific process for lease variation had existed and that, under the City Area Leases Act, an application was not defined. When I asked the officer how the department knew that an application existed, he replied that the department did not
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