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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2571 ..

Mr Speaker -

I present the Mant/Collins Review of Planning Functions and Structures and seek leave to make some remarks about it.

On Tuesday, the Chief Minister presented the Report of the Inquiry into the Administration of the ACT Leasehold System. That report contains a damning indictment of the land management and planning systems in the ACT, and makes many general recommendations about the administration of those systems.

The Government will evaluate those recommendations and decide how best to reshape the processes of planning in the Territory over the next couple of months. But in doing so, we want to address concerns of staff who feel that they are all being made the scapegoats for a series of inadequacies in the processes, which are, after all, established by the Assembly.

At the same time as this major inquiry was being conducted, the Government commissioned planning experts, John Mant and John Collins, to conduct a smaller scale review of planning procedures, addressing the administrative structures dealing with planning in the ACT and responding to concerns from staff about workloads.

I am today presenting that report for the information of members. Its recommendations complement the Stein Report, but give us some more 'on-the-ground' direction to reform of the planning approvals process. I have directed senior staff to commence briefing staff at the Planning Authority and within the Department of Urban Services about the report, its processes and recommendations. I am pleased that, as part of the process of review, staff were consulted and appeared very keen to examine new methods of more effectively delivering services to their clients.

The Stein Report is critical of the lack of strategic planning in the ACT. As the Chief Minister said on Tuesday, the Commonwealth and ACT Governments have taken steps to ensure that the development of a strategic plan is at the forefront of this Government's planning priorities. For some time, the Government and the Assembly's Planning and Environment Committee have been working together toward the establishment of such a plan.

Last week, the Chief Minister announced that the Commonwealth and the ACT would co-operate on a review of Canberra's metropolitan growth strategy. These significant initiatives show a willingness to address a basic inadequacy in the overall structure of planning at the highest levels - that is a lack of direction as to where we actually want Canberra to be heading.

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