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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 3853 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

public or private, so having strong planning legislation is a key factor in ensuring that our future development is in keeping with our social and environmental aims.

I would guess that some of the specific changes to the land act that Mrs Dunne would be considering would not be entirely agreed with by all of us in this chamber. However, I think that every member of this Assembly would agree that the land act is unwieldy, and the changes proposed in the consequential amendments to the Planning and Land Bill will not necessarily help.

The question is whether we should delay the commencement of the Planning and Land Bill until the review has been completed. A thorough review of the land act will take many months. In fact, it looks like the government is expecting it to take a year. Whilst I have agreed previously that spending a few more weeks looking in detail at the Planning and Land Bill would assist in producing a better act, I do not think that we can put off the actual implementation indefinitely.

Equally, whilst I agree that there is a place for an independent body to review the act, I have no particular preference for that organisation to be the Law Reform Commission, as there are neither good arguments nor bad arguments as to why it should be, but it is important that we watch what the government is doing to progress this issue and the review of the land act.

I will be supporting the minister's amendment. I will be happy to see a review of the land act go forward. I hope that the minister has taken into account the comments that have been made today about the problems with not only the land act but also the planning process. Hopefully, through the debates that have been held in this chamber and by the public about planning processes in the ACT, the government will consider carefully what it is doing with planning and what it is doing with the land act as it moves forward with its review.

At 5.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

MS DUNDAS: In conclusion, I hope that the government will facilitate a process which has full participation from the community and stakeholders and reach the goal of providing Canberra with a planning framework that is accessible, informative and streamlined.

MRS DUNNE (5.01): Speaking to the amendment, Mr Deputy Speaker: I can do numbers and I can see that Mr Corbell's amendment will succeed, but I would commend to the house the reasons why it should not succeed, in the first instance. Merely by replacing my paragraphs 4, 5 and 6, he does not address the question that has been raised by Ms Dundas and me that this review should be conducted by an independent body. Mr Corbell has made it perfectly clear that he thinks that it is appropriate that the review should be done within the authority.

This authority is the son of the existing organisation that has in various forms been overseeing the land act since its inception in 1991. The concern, without being critical of the people involved, is that they may be too close to it. Yes, they should make

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