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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3075 ..

Further, the four principles included in the government policy on “accountability for the ministerial call-in power”, which I believe have all been adhered to by this planning minister, have provided me with some confidence that the call-in powers are not being or have not been abused by this planning minister. No recent event has provided evidence to suggest that it is necessary to strip the minister of these powers. Rather, there remain a number of very important reasons why it is important for the minister to have such powers. I state once again that I will not be supporting the Land (Planning and Environment) Amendment Bill 2004 and I encourage other members to do likewise.

MS TUCKER (5.08), in reply: I can assure you, Mrs Cross, that your vote is not critical.

Mrs Cross: Yes it is. I could tell—you were really distressed.

MS TUCKER: This is the third time that I have brought this up but I was a little bit hopeful this time, for reasons that I will explain.

To summarise: call-in powers basically fast-track developments which are favoured by the minister of the day and, in doing so, third party appeal rights are overridden. We have seen these powers used regularly by ministers, with legitimate community concerns being pushed aside. It makes something of a joke of all the claims about independent planning authorities and commissioners and the rigour and accountability of the planning system.

The justification used by ministers, as we have just heard from Mrs Cross, is that the use of these powers is in the territory’s interest because they give rise to substantial public benefit. But, of course, that criterion can be used to justify any development. Substantial public benefit is obviously a matter of opinion and the Assembly has debated exactly what is of substantial public benefit in a number of policy areas. We have developed an appeals system to allow claims of public benefit to be tested. The Greens are concerned that that legitimate access to having claims of public interest tested has been removed.

In 1999 amendments were put by Labor to my bill supposedly to tighten up the process. The criteria that Mr Corbell in opposition put at that time have shown themselves to be weak. They have not made any difference to the use of call-in powers from any perspective. My attempt in 2001 to at least make the call-in power disallowable was also defeated and one might wonder why I would attempt do the same again, given that my legislation is being considered by basically the same members. But I was thinking there might be hope. In particular I was interested in the outrage expressed by the Liberals and Mrs Cross on the question of Karralika in response to the community’s concern and outrage over the notion of call-in powers.

As Ms Dundas said, the community is always surprised and concerned when it becomes aware of what the call-in powers are. People ask, “Why do we have this power vested in the minister when clearly we thought, as citizens, we had appeal rights and that those appeal rights were legitimate?” Contrary to the impression that has been given by members in this debate, people do not have the capacity to lodge vexatious appeals. Our appeals system to test public interest is removed by the minister of the day.

I was wondering whether the Liberals might at least consider rethinking their position on this after what they saw as the potential abuse of the use of call-in powers in respect of

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