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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4766 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

he will explain them; so I will not go into detail now - do come to deal with some of the real problems that have emerged through experience. I think that offers the first step of clarifying for some people the difficulties that they have encountered with the new legislation following the changes to the Land (Planning and Environment) Act.

The further issue of who should have rights to take what to the Supreme Court is probably one that does warrant further exploration. So, what I would like to do today is not simply to oppose point-blank what the Greens are suggesting, but to suggest that, because we are at the end of an Assembly term and because the changes are being rushed on us in an inappropriate Bill at an inappropriate time, we simply note those issues, put them on the table, put out the challenge to everyone involved, and say that this will be an issue that we - those of us who are here - will pick up again next year and treat with some seriousness. By then we will have had a year or more to look at the impact of the Land (Planning and Environment) Bill changes, we will have had a year to look at some of the case studies for what has appeared before the AAT, and we will have had more time to look at the types of complaints that we are hearing, to see whether, in fact, my assertion about Yarralumla is correct - perhaps I am wrong - and to look at the level of concern there is about the rights of individuals to participate in decisions and to complain, and we can then come back to it more cool-headedly.

The last thing I want to do today or the Labor side wants to do today is, by a series of amendments to the Land Act for other areas of appeal, to create new complications and difficulties because we have not had enough time to think through the consequences of the changes. I repeat that in opposing most of this Bill we are not opposing the idea of what is driving it, nor opposing the idea that the rights of people to appeal against decisions, to complain about decisions, to be involved in land decisions are not perfect at the moment. We are saying that, in fact, they should be reviewed. But this Bill does not offer the right mechanism.

So, whilst we will agree to it in principle, it is primarily to fix up one of the simplest of problems, really, but has ended up being a quite complicated problem as we trek through rights and interests to wherever we are at the moment. It seems that we are at rights at the moment and should be at interests. I hope that that is where we will end up at the end of today's debate. But I am not holding my breath, because we have managed to trip ourselves up quite thoroughly three times before. So, in the interests of getting that together, we will agree to the Bill in principle. We will listen with interest as the Minister explains the amendments that he has circulated, because we think that they will add further clarification and comfort to the people who are concerned about the implications of the current processes for appeal.

MS HORODNY (4.57), in reply: I am pleased to hear that Ms McRae is interested in continuing this discussion in the next Assembly, depending on who is left after the election. I hope that the Labor Party will take on Ms McRae's commitment, whether Ms McRae is here or not. I am disappointed, nonetheless, that there is resistance from the majority of members in this place to supporting this part of the Bill. I do not believe that it is as complicated as Ms McRae makes out. I believe that it is about establishing

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