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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4334 ..

Mr Moore: Compared to.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, she did not say "compared to". You should have listened to what Ms Horodny said, Mr Moore. She made - - -

Mr Moore: In the context of what she is saying.

MR HUMPHRIES: You might wish to revise what she said, but she did not say what you would like her to have said. She said, and the record will show, that there were disadvantages flowing to people from having to use the AAT to make appeals.

Mr Speaker, we should be aware of the fact that over a number of years the AAT has been built up as a specialist tribunal, as an alternative to the regular courts of the land, if you like. It has a very good reputation for providing access to people from all backgrounds and from all levels of familiarity with the law, and it has been very successful in providing access to the law in those circumstances. I completely reject the suggestion that people who now have to use the AAT because the Land and Planning Appeals Board is being abolished are in some way disadvantaged as a result of that. I strongly urge Ms Horodny to check what she has said about the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, because it was - - -

Ms Horodny: You still have not given a reason why you want to abolish the board.

MR HUMPHRIES: You might think that one is better than the other. That is fair enough. But to suggest that the AAT is an inappropriate forum or has some kind of problem of access is quite inappropriate. I view it as an attack on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. I think it is most inappropriate.

Mr Speaker, Ms Horodny also made the point that we have not advanced many reasons for abolishing the Land and Planning Appeals Board. No, we have not. We have, however, relied very heavily on the recommendations of the Stein report. The Stein report recommended unanimously - and almost everything in that report was unanimous - that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal replace the Land and Planning Appeals Board because of a perception of widespread deficiencies in the operation of the Land and Planning Appeals Board.

Again I would ask my colleagues on the crossbenches who lecture us constantly about consultation who it is who has had dealings with the Land and Planning Appeals Board that they have actually asked about the success or otherwise of that board. I have heard a lot about the theory of appeals processes, the structure of the Land and Planning Appeals Board and why it is better to have a structure like that than to have a more formal structure to hear appeals. I have not heard any reflection of community experience with the Land and Planning Appeals Board in the comments that have been made, especially by Ms Horodny or, to a lesser extent, by Mr Moore. I, on the other hand, have had lots of exposure to community reaction to those processes.

To be perfectly frank with the Assembly, I have not heard favourable comments made of the Land and Planning Appeals Board process by very many people at all. Indeed, I go further and say that I have heard nobody say - - -

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