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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1688 ..

transfer to the Planning and Land Authority the responsibility for legal proceedings relating to the functions of the Commissioner for Land and Planning, a position that will not continue after the commencement of the Planning and Land Act.

The opportunity is taken in this bill to correct two typographical errors and one omission in the Planning and Land Act.

References to the Gungahlin Development Authority have also been removed from the Public Sector Management Act and the Taxation (Government Business Enterprises) Act.

Simply put, apart from a few very minor corrections, the amendments proposed in this bill are machinery provisions that give effect to the legislation passed by this Assembly on 12 December 2002.

Mr Speaker, today I have also tabled for the information of members the draft Planning and Land Regulations 2003.

The Planning and Land Act 2002 provides for regulations for two important purposes. They are, firstly, the identification of matters that must be referred to the Planning and Land Council by the Planning and Land Authority and, secondly, the preparation and approval of the business plan of the Land Development Agency.

As members will be aware, the Planning and Land Act provides for the establishment of a Planning and Land Council, an independent body quite separate from the Planning and Land Authority, which has the single, critical role of providing advice to the minister and the authority on planning and land management issues. The council has no decision-making functions in relation to those issues. Decisions are the responsibility of the minister, the Assembly or the authority, according to the kind of decision to be made.

The act recognises the importance of ensuring that issues of significance are referred to the council for advice and that the advice given should be accessible to the public. Members will note that the act allows the authority to refer any matter to the council, but the regulations-the draft of which I have tabled today-may specify the circumstances in which that must be done.

It is also important to note that regulation 4(1) makes a quite general statement about the responsibility of the Planning and Land Council. It must refer any matter that it considers to involve significant policy, planning or community issues. That is a strong obligation but, you will agree, open to some interpretation. To clarify that obligation, regulation 4(2) states that the following measures are always taken to involve significant issues:

preparing draft variations to the Territory Plan, except variations that do not affect adversely anybody's rights or are only to correct a formal error in the plan;

preparing or reviewing a section master plan;

preparing or reviewing the land release program;

advising on the broad spatial planning framework for the ACT;

dealing with an application, or the grant of a lease, if the minister has directed that an environmental impact assessment be made or a panel of inquiry established;

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