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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3070 ..

power. I have to say that the existence of that power or the threat of the possibility of that power may operate to obviate some of the vexatious complaints and appeals that could come through.

We only have to look at the GDE exercise where the primary feature of the objections and appeals and the legal action that has been taken has been one of timing. It has not been a pursuit of a particular objective and a pursuit of putting things right. It has quite obviously been a very carefully crafted campaign with applications being made at the very last possible moment to protract and frustrate the process. It has not been at all about the pursuit of a decent decision, a balanced decision, for the community.

To a lesser degree that sort of activity can occur, and it will not always be a road or a commercial development. It may well be a matter of development or change for the benefit of the community; it may be for the benefit of a section of the community that needs the assistance of government to get some facility constructed, open and available as soon as possible.

The history of call-in powers shows that although obviously there has been a bit of spitting across this place from time to time, to the best of my recollection I do not think you could in any way claim or even imagine that call-in powers have been overused and abused within the town, and I hope and trust that that will always be the case.

I have been in the job of Acting Minister for Planning for only a couple of days and I have got some new friends knocking on my door. But rest assured that every issue will be examined on its merits and, wherever possible, the full application of the appeals process will be observed so that every stakeholder in our community has the maximum input. Of course, as I said, there will be occasions when unfortunately it is necessary to circumvent those processes because they have either been abused, as we have seen in recent times, or there is a genuine public interest reason why those powers should be used.

So, I am sorry, we cannot support the legislation.

MRS DUNNE (4.50): I would like to congratulate Mr Quinlan on his maiden speech as the planning minister, and a very sound speech it was, too. I hope that perhaps this is a portent of more agreement across the chamber between the opposition planning spokesman and the government planning minister.

Mr Quinlan: Hang on for 10 minutes.

MRS DUNNE: The minister says, “Just hang on for 10 minutes.” The Liberal opposition will not be supporting this proposal. I understand the genesis of this measure and I understand the ongoing concerns of the Greens in particular and various crossbench members over the years about the use of call-in powers. But as the new planning minister has said, the call-in powers are a very important and useful tool in the armoury of any planning regime.

It is true to say that call-in powers have been used from time to time, and there has been criticism about them. However, there has been less criticism about their use in this

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