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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (14 November) . . Page.. 3624 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

As to addressing that change, I am concerned and the members of the committee are concerned that there seems to be a lack of preparedness for the change. There was concern that rank and file staff were not being embraced by the process. When members of the legislation task force were questioned about what processes for change management were in train, we did not get a satisfactory answer. There seems to be no preparedness for this change.

In relation to this change, the linchpin will be the new chief planning executive. The committee had a view, which was reflected very strongly in the submissions received, that the new chief planning executive should have a high level of urban planning experience in one or more cities. It was the view of the Planning Institute of Australia-I do not think we discussed it at much length in this report, but I think that it needs to be reinforced-that there should be an international search for the first chief planning executive. That is the view of the Planning Institute. It is probably also a personal view. I will leave it to other members of the committee to say whether they think it is as important as I do. The leadership of the chief planning executive will be very important in relation to changing the morale and changing the skill level. It will have a honey pot effect and help to reskill the organisation.

Mr Speaker, there were great problems in the preparing of this legislation and this committee report. As I said the other day, the revealing of what the government has in mind has been rather like the dance of the seven veils. Mr Corbell thinks it is enough to introduce the bill, but the bill is not everything. There are consequential amendments and there are other pieces of legislation that underpin this bill and to this day we have not seen them in a final form.

On Tuesday, in discussion on this matter, Mr Corbell said that the government has provided a range of other information that would not normally be made available in the course of this sort of inquiry. That is just plain wrong, Mr Speaker. Getting information out of the minister and his task force has been like extracting teeth. To reinforce that, I will take the liberty of quoting a couple of paragraphs out of the introduction to the report:

The Committee has been hampered by a tight timeframe and by Government delays in making the complete suite of proposed legislation available. Indeed, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Amendment Bill remains in Exposure Draft form, having not yet been tabled, and the Committee has yet to view any proposed Regulations that are to accompany the functioning of the Acts.

The Planning & Land Bill was presented to the Assembly on 27 June 2002 and referred to this committee on 22 August 2002. The Planning & Land (Consequential Amendments) Bill was presented to the Assembly ... on 26 September 2002. The exposure draft of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Amendment Bill and a draft outline of matters to be included in the regulations were provided to the committee on 1 October 2002-

when most of the committee members were interstate on committee business-

At the committee's public hearing on 8 October 2002-

the first public hearing-

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