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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1847 ..

The Democrats have some time for the first objective of these regulations, which is to clarify the relationship between the Commonwealth and the territory for approvals on designated land. This deserves some comment, although we will also focus on the second objective of preventing planning appeals for the GDE.

The relationship between ACTPLA and the National Capital Authority remains sub-optimal. The NCA continues to have control over planning decisions that arguably should be the province of local decision makers. The government’s decision to junk its election promise not to build the Gungahlin Drive on the eastern route was linked to the inappropriate decision-making powers of the National Capital Authority. Current disagreement about the appropriateness of developments in other areas is also centred on the powers of the NCA. I note that the federal opposition has recently proposed a realignment of planning responsibilities in favour of the territory should the federal government change to the ALP at the next election.

In this context, it is not without irony that the ACT Minister for Planning is moving to confirm the NCA’s powers despite disagreeing with their extent. However, despite the fact that there seems to be a general move to greater self-determination for the territory in the area of planning, it is important to stress that this is best achieved in the political arena and not judicially.

While Justice Crispin’s decision raised the idea that the territory may, in fact, have greater planning jurisdiction under current laws than first thought, this is still a subject of some contention. It is also the case that, if the ACT took this ruling to mean that it could exercise greater planning control over designated areas, the resulting confusion and transfer of responsibility could not only cause chaos for existing developments but also mean that the Commonwealth could legislate to reinstate the agreed previous understanding.

The amendments to confirm the status quo between the territory and the Commonwealth appear to be a pragmatic approach in principle to provide certainty to the planning arrangements in the territory. However, this is not to say that the Democrats agree with the status quo. We believe that there needs to be a serious re-evaluation of the relative roles and relationship of the NCA and ACTPLA.

If this were the only issue that we were focusing on with these regulations, then the Democrats would see no need to disallow these regulations. However, the government has rolled a second, more disturbing set of amendments into the legislation. These regulations make changes to prevent objectors or third parties from making appeals to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal under sections 275 and 276 of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991. This is a further erosion of the rights of Canberrans and sets a poor precedent for the conduct of future governments.

There will be those who will try to portray this disallowance motion today as a simple black and white vote about supporting or opposing the construction of Gungahlin Drive extension. However, those people know that that argument is superficial and simplistic. There are wider principles at stake today in this debate—principles about separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive and the principle of equality of the law for all Canberrans, whether they are the government or some other developer. These are

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