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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2574 ..

There are a number of questions that I will be putting on the notice paper. I notice Mr Corbell, the minister, whenever there is a matter under attack concerning his portfolio, always leaves the floor. Fortunately, Minister, you did say in your speech that we have the opportunity to go through you in terms of this process. I will certainly be putting a series of questions on the notice paper in relation to this Yarralumla development, like:

• Why was approval granted, although the proposed residence was illegal, both in respect to plot ratio and being three-storey?

• How can provisions of appendix 111.1 relating to privacy and boundary fences be ignored by the planning authority during the development application process?

• Why are immediate neighbours having no rights of appeal or redress under the territory plan?

• Why should ACT residents—and this is an important one—continue to be penalised or disadvantaged under a territory plan that is clearly flawed?

• And lastly, of course, will you intervene in the matter?

That’s up to you. The questions will be going on the notice paper, Mr Corbell.

The point, I think, that needs to be reinforced, however, is that there is not confidence in the planning process. I repeat that a house, a home, is probably the greatest investment anybody will ever make in their life, and it is simply unacceptable that this purchase should be threatened by all sorts of extraneous activities and that the processes put in place to protect the home, the house, should be so seriously flawed as to be derisory. The angst, the anger and the frustration that people undergo because of this is, I think, apart from being unacceptable, probably also unbelievable.

We have all experienced these problems. We have all seen the way that ordinary, decent people have been seriously inconvenienced and have had to prepare half inch thick documentation to try, not necessarily with any guarantee of success, to get decisions reversed in this matter. I do not know how other members of this house feel but I, for one, would be extremely concerned if this happened to me.

Doesn’t anybody in this place, apart from, obviously, a few of us, have any feelings for these people—that they should suddenly find that what they believe are rules are being broken or perhaps even just ignored and the perpetrators are getting away with it?

Mr Hargreaves: Put them in jail, I say.

MR CORNWELL: No. I do not know that we have to put them in jail, Mr Hargreaves, to acknowledge your interjection. All we have to do is enforce the laws, the planning laws that have been introduced.

I do support Mr Corbell’s suggestion that this whole matter should be streamlined. It is simply too much of a challenge for the ordinary person out there to work their way through this labyrinth of rules that have been imposed, that have been overlaid. I sometimes wonder—maybe I am too suspicious—whether this proliferation of laws and regulations is not designed specifically to frustrate ordinary people trying to get some justice out of the planning system. But, whatever it is, Mrs Dunne’s motion is relevant

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