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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1929 ..

MR CORBELL

a. adopt practices that are more responsive to community input;

b. produce documentation that is easily understood by interested lay members of the community; and

c. responds fully and in a timely fashion to requests from the Committee for information.

Mr Speaker, let me say that the government is confident that PALM's practices are responsive to community input and is happy to make available the report on consultation prepared by PALM in relation to draft variation 200 to any members who would be interested in it.

However, I would also point out that it is neither practical, nor even possible, to respond positively to all of the diverse range of views and opinions expressed by different stakeholder groups on issues such as residential land use policies.

It is the role of government and, indeed, the Assembly in these circumstances to weigh up the views expressed to it, including those of PALM's professional planning staff, and to decide on an appropriate policy response.

PALM makes every effort to ensure its documentation is as accurate and easy to understand as possible. However, it must be acknowledged that the Territory Plan is a legal instrument that covers a diverse and complex range of issues and sits within a statutory framework. Like much other legislation and regulation, it must be legally precise and can at times appear somewhat complicated to the lay reader.

Nevertheless, PALM has made very significant strides to humanise the planning system and introduce plain English tools. In fact, some of the committee's suggested amendments to the variation that the government has not accepted would have made the residential controls even more complicated and difficult to administer.

The government is confident that PALM staff have been responsive to the committee's requests. PALM staff attended all of the public hearings on draft variation 200 and assisted the committee whenever requested. Despite comments about the complexity of the documentation, the committee declined requests from PALM to give an overview of the material in draft variation 200 at the commencement of the hearings.

The committee only scheduled PALM to appear at 10.30 pm on the third and final day of committee hearings and then deferred PALM's presentation at the last moment. PALM officers were only allowed to give their presentation on the last day of the hearings and then only-and I stress "only"-after insisting that the material needed to be put on the public record.

The government believes it would be of benefit to the committee to accept a technical briefing prior to commencing public hearings. In this way all committee members could assess hearing submissions from a more informed position.

Mr Speaker, after careful consideration of the committee's recommendations, draft variation 200 was further revised to take account of those recommendations of the committee with which the government agreed, and the government has approved that variation.

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