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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 1081 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

the significant community concern over the former Kennett government's proposals for a new VicCode, the equivalent of the proposed ACTCode 2.

The community advisory panel proposed in my motion would comprise community, residents groups, business and professional representatives. I would encourage the government to ensure that any such community advisory panel is properly resourced and given the opportunity to conduct meetings with interested parties across the city.

My motion also proposes that such a community advisory panel would present its report to the Assembly and that the government would be required to table its response to the report of the panel in the Assembly. Requiring the government to formally respond to the panel's report would ensure that the government and the minister would not be able to hide behind the facade of so-called consultation they have adopted to date.

Whilst the government has released the proposed policies and code for comment, they have not outlined what comments they have received, nor have they outlined how these comments have been addressed. As usual, they have simply set up a process which allows them to say, "We have listened" but then ignore the issues raised. Such a significant change to the Territory Plan deserves a better process of engaging the community.

This motion requires the government to explain in detail how this proposed draft variation will be implemented when and if it takes interim effect under the land act. I have received a number of representations from individual developers raising concern about what provisions they will be required to abide by if this draft variation takes effect. They want to know, when they are preparing the development application, which rules they have to comply with. Are they to comply with the existing requirements of the Territory Plan, or with the proposals outlined in the proposed draft variation? The problem is that they simply do not know, and, when they approach PALM, PALM does not seem to know either.

The land act does set out that in instances where there is a discrepancy between the two policies-that is, the existing policy in the Territory Plan and the proposed variation to the plan-the more onerous requirement will apply. This is fine for individual land use policies on individual sites. But in this case, where a policy will be implemented which will affect every single development application in the city and which will cover every single residential block in the city, the potential for confusion as well as for the implementation of policies which will have a detrimental impact on the garden city characteristics of Canberra is significant and real.

These proposed policies and code are too significant and potentially too detrimental to allow them to have legal standing in their current form. Broader and more genuine discussion is needed, and forums must be established which facilitate that. These are difficult documents to understand, but as an Assembly we must ensure that the debate brings people with it, rather than simply leaving them behind, disillusioned and angry. There is simply too much at stake to let this proposed new regime for residential development to go ahead now.

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