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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4333 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

that the Government had already announced that the board's functions would be transferred to the AAT. Stein therefore did not assess the pros and cons of this move but merely suggested ways in which planning appeals could be handled by the AAT. Given these points, it seems that insufficient evidence has been put forward by the Government to justify the abolition of the Planning Appeals Board on the basis of its performance.

The final question therefore is whether the AAT would be better than the Planning Appeals Board. Again, we have doubts as to whether this would be the case. The critical issue seems to be whether the planning appeals system should be run as a quasi-judicial process with legal representation of the party, or whether it should be a more informal process which assesses appeals on the basis of whether the planning merits of a particular development proposal have been fully assessed by the planners and not only on whether the development strictly meets the quantitative criteria of the Territory Plan.

We remain to be convinced that the planning appeals process would work better through the AAT. The original reasons for keeping planning appeals out of lawyers' hands still seem just as valid as they did in 1993. The involvement of lawyers in appeals will inevitably increase the cost to people who lodge appeals. This could particularly discourage third-party objectors. The other main point is that lawyers are not necessarily expert in planning matters. Planning is more than just whether or not a development proposal complies with the formal rules. It also requires judgments to be made about the impacts of the particular development proposal and on its locality and the relative importance of these impacts. Under the Land Act there are already provisions for people to be represented at board hearings with the leave of the board. This deals with the situation where parties to an appeal may not feel confident enough about appearing before the board in person. There does not appear to be a need for legal representation to be made a right at appeal hearings.

In conclusion, the Greens will not be supporting these two Bills. The reasons for introducing the board in the first place appear to remain valid today. We have not heard a reasonable argument from the Government for why the board should be abolished. We accept that there may be ways of improving the operations of the appeals board, but this can be done in simpler ways than just abolishing the board altogether. We have not been convinced that transferring the appeals functions to the AAT will add much to the process. Indeed, it could return the appeals system to the situation where only those who can afford legal representation or who can argue on the finer points of ACT planning will have any chance of getting a reasonable review of a planning decision that affects them.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.03), in reply: I thank the Opposition for its support, but I have to express some concern about some of the comments made elsewhere on this legislation. At the very outset, I emphasise my complete rejection of Ms Horodny's closing suggestion that a considerable disadvantage flows to members of the public from having to make appeals in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Ms Horodny might not have been around for long enough - - -

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