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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2566 ..

like to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate these agencies on the work they have done in the past 12 months.

Mrs Dunne seeks to discredit the planning process and those undertaking it. The point that should not be lost in discussing this motion is that, every time unqualified words such as “confidence” and “trust” are thrown around, some of the mud sticks. Perhaps that is the purpose behind the motion.

I think it is important to note some of the significant changes to the planning system since the Stanhope government came to office. We have established the independent Planning and Land Authority; we have abolished the Commissioner for Land and Planning, reducing a layer of the DA approval process; we have changed the Administrative Appeals Tribunal processes as they relate to planning; and we have included the introduction of a mediation process and a 120-day turnaround time for appeals. Seventy-four per cent of cases going to the AAT have been successfully mediated. This mediation represents savings for those appealing DA decisions and a reduction in the time of the appeals process.

The government has also sought to provide vision and direction for planning in the first significant way since self-government. It has done this through the development of the spatial plan, the sustainable transport plan, central area study and the neighbourhood planning processes which have seen over 10,000 Canberrans participate in the planning for their city. Added to this, each household in Canberra and Queanbeyan received a brochure on the spatial plan—110,000 households.

The government has formed the Planning and Land Council to allow for independent expert planning advice to be provided to the authority and to the minister. Furthermore, all this advice is publicly available and open for all members of the community to review. And the government has brought back public sector land development, ensuring a greater financial return to the territory for its land asset and allowing for improved design and for the community to have their say in how greenfield and brownfield developments are designed and built. These are not the actions of a government that shies away from community consultation. Rather, this is a government that engages in it and encourages it. This is a government that wants the community involved in the planning and decision-making process.

I am pleased that Mrs Dunne has raised this because, as she would be aware, only today I announced a number of initiatives that I believe will result in a process that ensures broad community representation and participation and consultation on planning matters. To help to further facilitate appropriate consultation, a review of stakeholder consultation was commissioned by me. Concurrent research was conducted by Artcraft Research, and the National Institute for Governments was commissioned to undertake a detailed investigation. These reports show that Canberrans are generally happy with the level of planning in the city.

The research undertaken shows that the vast majority of the Canberra community views the ACT’s planning positively, with 78 per cent of respondents to a telephone survey rating it as good or better. The review also provided advice on the effectiveness of community engagement in the statutory and non-statutory aspects of the ACT’s planning system. As a result of this research, I recently announced a number of initiatives that

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