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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 356 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

director of PALM, who is a senior executive under contract to the Minister for Urban Services. It is hardly an independent position.

Mr Corbell's bill re-establishes the position of chief planner. This is a good move in that the chief planner will have more independence from the government of the day than under the current arrangement. A person who takes up this position will have their appointment scrutinised by the Assembly under the Subordinate Laws Act. Any directions given by the minister to the chief planner have to be tabled in the Assembly. Hopefully, with the passing of this bill, the potential for political considerations to override good planning will be significantly reduced.

Canberra had for many years a reputation for being at the forefront of urban planning. Under the NCDC, the planners were able to apply their professional judgments to the planning of Canberra, largely independent of the federal government. Since self-government, however, when planning came under the control of the Assembly, we have seen a range of dubious planning decisions that seem to be concerned with securing short-term political or financial gains or keeping the development lobby happy rather than being in the long-term public interest.

However, it has to be recognised that the establishment of a chief planner is certainly not going to solve the various problems with planning in the ACT, despite Mr Corbell sometimes giving this impression when he has spoken at public events over the last few months. It has to be recognised that the chief planner will not be totally independent and that this person will not be making all the planning decisions in the ACT.

The Greens believe that this is the way it should be. Planning is a very political process in that it often involves trade-offs between various interests in the community. So it is proper for the Assembly to be setting broad planning principles and making the key planning decisions through variations to the Territory Plan rather than passing this task to an unelected official. The role of the chief planner is critical, however, in providing high-quality professional advice to the Assembly rather than providing advice that has already been through the political filters of the government of the day.

The independence of the chief planner is significantly constrained by other provisions in the land act regarding how Territory Plan variations are made and how development applications are approved and what appeal rights are available. The chief planner may initiate variations to the Territory Plan, but it is still up to the executive to approve these variations. The Assembly also has the role of reviewing these variations through the Planning and Urban Services Committee, and it has the power to disallow a variation.

Similarly, the chief planner may approve development applications, but in many cases this power is constrained. In cases where there are objections to a development application, the final decision is taken by the Commissioner for Land and Planning, which is a separate statutory position. In many cases there are also appeal rights to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

While having day-to-day independence, the chief planner will still need to be appointed by the government in the first place. Having a statutory chief planner will achieve nothing if the person appointed is a mate of the government of the day, has vested interests or is not sufficiently qualified for the job.

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