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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3747 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

I would like to make the following observations in support of the government's position. The main Planning and Land Bill was tabled on 27 June this year, almost five months ago. In that time, the Planning and Land Development Taskforce has undertaken a comprehensive and a thorough program of briefings and presentations to a wide selection of organisations as well as to members and to the Planning and Environment Committee. The taskforce has held many key informant interviews throughout the first half of this year and was advised at all times by an expert advisory committee, comprising highly experienced and respected people from a range of planning and land related backgrounds.

It is the government's view that it is time for the Assembly to consider the package of legislation that is based on the pre-election policies contained in Planning for People, the government's pre-election document.

The passage of these bills before Christmas will provide the certainty needed to allow the smooth transition to the new structures on the proposed date of 1 July 2003. Apart from the major task of merging and reshaping the existing organisations and ensuring appropriate financial and budgetary bases, the Planning and Land Council is to be established, a chief planning executive recruited, a Land Development Agency and its board established, and a chief executive officer appointed.

By 1 July 2003, it will be very nearly a full year since presentation of the principal bill in this package. Given the amount of consultation and discussion of the policies underlying the proposal, and the lengths to which the government and the taskforce have gone to explain all the details, the government believes that there has been more than enough time to consider and pass this legislation to provide for a commencement on 1 July 2003.

Only four of the committee's recommendations are disagreed with. Before discussing the government's proposals for changes to the package in response to the report, I should explain the government's position on these areas of disagreement.

The four recommendations and the government's positions on them are as follows. The first is:

The provisions currently outlined in the bill reflect standard tabling timeframes and the committee has not, in the government's view, presented persuasive reasons why they should be changed. However, I should signal that the government is open to further discussion on this issue.

The second recommendation is:

The government does not agree with this recommendation. Because the Planning and Land Authority will be subject to the provisions of the Financial Management Act, the Annual Reports Act and other government reporting requirements, the government

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