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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4182 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

It is laudable in many ways to provide advice to people in the development process and to attempt to open this process to community input, but there is not sufficient community input to warrant the delay, the cost or the slowdown which goes counter to all the things the minister says that the Planning and Land Authority will be able to deliver for the people of Canberra.

This is a means of throwing out a sheet anchor on the great boat of planning enterprise ACT. Every time somebody wants to do something of major import, it will have to go to the Planning and Land Council to seek its advice at some stage in the application phase. It does not quite matter when. It does not matter whether it is in the pre-application phase or in the DA phase. It is still a delay. It is still a cost to the community in time, resources and energy. It is an enervating process that will not bring about substantial change.

The question I have asked over and over again, and will continue to ask, is: if we make this change, what will change for the better? I put it on the record that there will be no change for the better because of this. It will just mean delay. For this reason the Liberal opposition opposes chapter 3 and the creation of the Planning and Land Council.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Planning and Minister for Industrial Relations) (9.55): Mrs Dunne needs to clarify where her opposition sits. Is her opposition to the notion of having an advisory council, or is her opposition to the notion that the processes in which the Planning and Land Council operate are unclear? We seem to have a mix of arguments. Is she saying that she objects to the notion of an expert advisory body giving advice to either the authority or the minister on particular matters? If she is, I find that extraordinary.

I find even more extraordinary Mrs Dunne's assertion that there is no requirement that the minister or the authority must agree with the advice of the Planning and Land Council. I know of no other situation where a decision-maker must agree with an advisory body. This is at the root of the confusion in Mrs Dunne's opposition to this chapter in the bill.

The Planning and Land Council is an advisory body; it is not the decision-maker. The minister or the authority, depending on the matter, is the decision-maker. For that reason advice must be taken account of but not necessarily agreed with. We have a heap of ministerial advisory councils. I never heard the previous Liberal government say you must take their advice. The whole point is that they are there to give their opinion. They are experts or stakeholders that represent the views in a particular sector. Their views should be taken into account, but they should not necessarily be agreed with.

It is the government's view that the Planning and Land Council is a significant improvement on the existing process. It will be an expert body. The fields of expertise outlined in the bill are numerous. The council is to provide advice on issues of concern.

Mrs Dunne says that we have no say on the matters that the council gives advice on. That is wrong. The regulations which set out the matters the council will give advice on are disallowable. You have seen what the government's intention is, Mrs Dunne. If you do not like it, disallow it. That is the option open to this Assembly. To say, "I do not like it, because I have not seen it and therefore I want to get rid of the whole structure"does not make sense. In fact, it is a nonsense.

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