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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 824 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The Government remains committed to ensuring that planning decisions are responsive to economic and social needs and to the rights of Canberrans, with proper community consultation. Our commitment to local involvement through precinct management, local area planning advisory committees and precinct committees demonstrates this. We are committed to undertaking balanced and acceptable development, including planning of the city centre and carefully managed urban consolidation. Completing the metropolitan growth strategy review is central to achieving this objective. Also we are committed to ensuring an adequate supply of affordable land and support for alternative housing concepts that are available in all price ranges.

The need to simplify the Territory's complex legislation is also well recognised. The Government proposes to take the opportunity presented by these reforms to effect some other improvements in the operation of the planning legislation. Our objectives include a clear planning framework for decisions about the Territory's future physical development; a simple, transparent and expeditious process for assessing and determining all land-related applications; a simply structured legislative and regulatory framework to remove any ambiguity from the process; and integrating, to the maximum extent possible, Territory and national capital planning and development policies and processes. To assist with this process, the Government will be establishing a planning and land management consultative panel, drawn from the private sector, from professional groups and from the community. Advice on the implementation of the reforms I am announcing today will be the first task of this group as part of an ongoing consultative role. The legislative aspects of those reforms will come before the house, I hope, in these autumn sittings. We will not be letting the grass grow under our feet.

Mr Speaker, one thing upon which I wish to comment prior to concluding is the creativity and genuine willingness to tackle problem areas which have been demonstrated by staff in the land and planning administrations. Obviously, and understandably, many were shocked and disappointed by some elements of the board of inquiry's findings, but they have seen this as a crucial opportunity to make changes to the processes and practices. I would like to thank the many staff who have been involved in the development of this response.

Mr Wood: Yes, the staff have done a good job.

MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Mr Wood for that comment. They are not just planners and land managers, but people from many other agencies as well. Many people have joined together to develop and implement the changes which the Government has decided upon.

To return to the challenge issued early in this speech, planning and land management in the Territory is in urgent need of reform. It is in the interests of the entire Canberra community - not just pockets of it - that this reform occur. Despite this, there are many and diverging views on what changes are required, as we have heard. The Stein, Mant/Collins and red tape reports have given us much useful direction, but they also illustrate the divergence of views. Give and take is required on all sides, and the Government is taking the lead in this respect by putting forward the model I have outlined today. I challenge members and all in the community with an interest in planning and land management to enter into the debate that will follow in the same spirit. Mr Speaker, I present the Government response to the report.

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