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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2316 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

This government's record on planning is simply absolutely atrocious. You only have to go through the various issues where this government's record has been revealed to be an atrocious one. I was going down a quick list as I was preparing for my speech. You only have to look at the Federal Golf Club development, rejected after the government said it would not consider it any more-I am sure Mr Humphries remembers that one-and then it came back onto the agenda.

Betterment tax was the government's attempt to rip off from the Canberra community an enormous amount of revenue for no legitimate purpose. The rural residential development debacle: the independent consultant's report is independent as long as you tell the consultant what to write.

Most recently we have seen this Assembly's rejection of the government's moves to impose dual occupancy development in one of Canberra's most valuable heritage areas. This is not the record of a planning minister, or a government, that will ensure good planning for the Australian Capital Territory.

We have seen, over the past three years, particularly-but I would argue, since the commencement of the term of the first Carnell government-a continual whittling away, undermining and underresourcing of our planning agency. It has reached a point where the Planning and Land Management Group now struggles with such basic issues as ensuring that people actually comply with their lease conditions.

We see the Planning and Land Management Group continuing to lose staff. It is anticipated that the Planning and Land Management Group will see a $1.1 million reduction in its expenditure in this coming year's budget. In terms of staffing, PALM expects to lose three staff, but over the past two years we have seen PALM lose close to 30 staff. Those reductions have had a significant impact on the ability of our planning authority to do the work it must do to strategically plan for this city's future.

This government's attitude on planning is not about strategic planning. It is not about focusing on the future needs and demands of land use in the territory, of social services in the territory, which Canberrans need. This government treats planning purely as a regulatory function, for just approving or rejecting development applications. That is what it sees as the primary function of planning, because this government believes that it is the market that can better drive the decisions about how land should be used and what types of land use should occur.

Labor rejects this government's philosophy of market-driven planning. There is a very important role for public sector planning. The revival of public sector planning is essential for the revival of citizenship in this city and around Australia. This is a theme that is now being picked up by many commentators around Australia who observe, write about and study the practice of planning in Australia.

Planning is essentially, and must always be, a public activity. Decisions that affect the form and shape of the cities in which we live must be democratic, they must be open and transparent, and they must recognise that planning is not there solely to deal with the demands of the market. Indeed, the whole purpose of planning is to mitigate the effects of development that is driven solely by the market. That is how planning originally came about.

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