Page 2307 - Week 07 - Thursday, 17 August 2006
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would fit into that mode—of slap suits. Of course, the Greens believe strongly in the institution of participatory democracy. By removing the capacity for all third-party appeals, rather than devising a method by which bogus commercial or political appellants can be discouraged and weeded out, the government has abrogated its duty to represent the community interest. I have already said I recognise that the problems identified by ACTPLA and the government are real and need addressing. But we need to recognise the rights of both developers and community activists and seek to drive the balance in them. That is where my anti-slap bill will be useful in time, if it is passed by this Assembly.
My concern is that we have here a broad-based regulation that does not distinguish between non-vexatious complaints and those complaints of commercial interests who have their own ends only in mind. So while it might make it easier for the bureaucracy to work and to make sure developments will go ahead, and it might reduce the use of the minister’s call-in powers, it removes that independent voice. Mr Savery told me during the briefing that he does not think that people need an independent arbiter because ACTPLA is independent from the government. He was very strong about this. But this misses the point that what is needed is a source of view that is independent of the delegated decision maker. Our system works well largely because of checks and balances, and by making ACTPLA both the decision maker and ultimate legal arbiter the regulation destroys one of those balances. That is the reason I am moving this disallowance motion. It just needed that broader discussion, which I hope we are going to have now.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (11.14): The opposition will not be supporting this disallowance motion. When the minister announced these changes, I looked very closely at them. Some of the criticisms that Dr Foskey has raised are probably valid in the sense that this instrument has fairly broad application as it applies to the town centres, Civic and industrial areas. It is a reasonably blunt instrument, I suppose, for attacking a problem which is of significant concern. It is of significant concern not just to the development community in this town but also, at times, to owner-builders and others. I know they are not going to be affected by these changes.
I want to look at where we are at currently with the current third party appeals process and whether it is serving the community well. I know that, as part of the broader reforms, there will be some changes in these areas, changes which we are looking at very closely as well, but I think we do need to take a broader look at the purpose of merit review of development applications. Everyone has a different view about developments. For any given office block, block of units or home extension, there will be widely differing views in the community from neighbours, residents’ groups and others.
I think that one of the challenges posed by merit review is that it is, essentially, coming down to an opinion about whether a development is good or what impacts there may be on some potentially affected residents and, in other cases, people who are not particularly close to the development. I think that is one of the fundamental problems, one of the bigger problems and one of the bigger challenges that this government is going to face. We will support them if they look at some really good reforms which do not take away totally any prospect of appeal but certainly do not allow the kind of open slather that we have at the moment.
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