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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1065 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

because, generally, the system has worked very well in this respect over the last 18 months. I am still concerned that there have been circumstances where people who wished to appeal and who had reasonable reasons for doing so have not been able to appeal, although there has not been a substantial and adverse impact.

I will be supporting the legislation in principle. I will be opposing clause 4, which relates to minor amendments, and I will be supporting the most important part of it, which is the review process in terms of what is a substantial and adverse effect. But in both cases I have put a caveat on my support, saying that I will be monitoring the impact.

MR CORBELL (4.23): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Labor Party will be supporting this legislation today. Firstly, I wish to respond to some of the comments of Mr Moore, particularly those in relation to the improvements he has seen in PALM. There is no doubt that we have seen in PALM a far greater focus on getting the process right and getting the administrative requirements of working through a development application right. That certainly is to be commended. But Mr Moore omitted to mention that we have seen at the same time significant budget cuts to PALM that have diminished considerably its capacity to provide strategic planning advice to the Territory and its capacity to process development applications adequately within the statutory timeframes. Yes, we have seen positive efforts made to improve the technical efficiency of officers and their ability to streamline the processing of development applications. At the same time, the Government has deliberately undermined the efforts to achieve a better outcome by imposing significant budget cuts on PALM, not only in the strategic planning area but also in the development applications area. We really have a double-edged sword there as far as the actions of the Government are concerned.

The Labor Party is of the view that there is an increasing level of unease in the community in relation to approvals, particularly those approvals which have been deemed to be for minor amendments. My office in particular is receiving an increasing number of complaints about certain development applications and minor amendments which have been approved and which residents feel have had a very significant impact on their amenity, but they have not been able to have any effect on the outcome. That is really the question here, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker: Do we enable people in the community to have an impact on the form that their suburb, the community in which they live, is taking shape? Do we allow them to have a say? Do we allow them to have an ability to influence the outcome? Ms Tucker's Bill gives people in the community the ability to influence the outcome in a way that is currently not available. What the Government is saying and what Mr Moore is saying is that they are not going to allow the community to be able to have a say and influence the outcome for the area in which they live.

This argument is not just the technicalities of the Land Act. It is about the philosophy you bring to a planning policy and to planning legislation. It is an argument about whether people have a direct and vested interest in making sure that the communities in which they live are not changed in ways in which they are unable to influence the decisions. It is about making sure that people in those communities do have the capacity

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