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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 614 ..

Commissioner for Land and Planning to be a statutory independent decision-maker on contentious development applications.

However, the government did not want to give away too much of its power to influence development proposals and it retained “call-in” powers to enable the minister to call in for his decision what were termed at the time major proposals of territory-wide significance.

Consequently, there was considerable concern across the community about the regular use of this power by the then Minister for Urban Services to fast-track favoured development applications and to avoid third party appeals. What was meant to be a power that would be used in exceptional circumstances only became more and more a part of the normal development approval process.

In October 1999, both Mr Corbell, then shadow minister for planning, and I introduced private members bills to address this issue. I proposed that the call-in powers be simply abolished. The Greens argued then, and still believe, that government cannot have it both ways. It cannot have an independent planning commissioner and an established appeals mechanism through the AAT and ultimately the Supreme Court to deal with contentious developments and then override this process when it suits it.

Mr Corbell voiced similar concerns about these call-in powers at that time but did not want to abolish them. In his bill, instead, he specified criteria for the circumstances in which the minister could exercise the call-in powers, and also included a requirement that the minister table in the Assembly a statement that explained why the call-in power was used.

I did not support this bill as I thought that the criteria he suggested were too broad. The criteria refer to applications that raise a major issue of policy, have a substantial effect on the achievement of the objectives of the territory plan, or would give rise to a substantial public benefit. These criteria can be used, and have been used, to justify almost any development and, of course, the minister’s justifications can never be really challenged by anyone else as the decision is final. However, the then government supported the bill and it was incorporated into the Land Act at the time.

In June 2001 I tried again to amend the act, this time simply to make any decisions called in and made by the minister disallowable in the Assembly. That bill was again opposed by the then government and opposition.

Since the government was changed in October 2001 there have been several more instances of the minister invoking call-in powers. The Hungarian Australian Club in Narrabundah and “The Space” development in Turner are two examples.

Mr Corbell: That’s not correct. I haven’t called in the Hungarian Australian Club. That is actually incorrect.

MS TUCKER: Okay. Mr Corbell has interjected that he did not call in the Hungarian Australian Club in Narrabundah, so I am happy to look at that again.

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