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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2571 ..

satisfied that the politics, as best as possible in the planning and development debate, does not interfere with the integrity of the process.

While the authority has independence in decision-making set out in legislation, it does not have independence in policy matters. And members would be aware of that when we debated the Planning and Land Bill. Mrs Dunne’s motion, I suggest, flies in the face of any independence of the authority by seeking to have the Assembly direct the authority.

I believe it is essential that Assembly members respect both the independent decision-making capacity of the authority as well as its responsibilities to the minister and, through the minister, to the Assembly. This is not an either/or situation; this is a system where I have responsibilities for many of the actions of ACTPLA, and I reserve the right to ensure that advice is consistent with these responsibilities.

The Planning and Land Act, which established the Planning and Land Authority, the Planning and Land Council and the Land Development Agency, provides the government structures for planning and land development in the ACT. This structure makes clear the separation between the Assembly’s and the government’s role in setting policy and the planning professionals’ role, through the Planning and Land Authority, in undertaking technical assessments against the approved policy framework.

Politicians are elected by the community to set policy. Our technical professionals administer this policy, and the Planning and Land Authority has been given the independence to make those decisions without political interference. The National Development Assessment Forum has recently approved a model for an ideal development assessment framework which the forum advocates should be adopted in all states and territories. Central to this model is a clear separation of powers.

Whilst local governments around Australia are arguing to maintain their right to decide development applications, only in the ACT under this government’s leadership has a jurisdiction taken the progressive and groundbreaking step of taking politicians out of the development approvals process. Of course, as in any state government, I, as Minister for Planning, retain the option to call in a development if it is significant or sensitive to the ACT or that in itself raises a significant policy issue. At the same time, this government has further tightened the accountabilities around the use of this power so that the decision can only be made in a fully informed way; that is, I must seek the advice of the Planning and Land Council and the authority prior to making a decision on a call-in and I must table this advice in the Assembly.

It is clear that the authority does not report to the Assembly; it reports to the executive and the minister responsible for planning. However, there are circumstances where the Assembly, through its committees, has access to the authority’s expertise. The planning and environment committee is able to call the CPE on behalf of the authority to give advice on issues that are currently before the committee. For example, on a submission to the committee for a variation to the territory plan which the committee felt was contentious, it could seek the advice of the authority to get its views on that variation. And the authority would be able to give the committee its views on that, regardless of the government’s policy position.

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