Page 115 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 February 2007
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that we did not need to talk about this bill today. I would much have preferred to have had a lot more time to put into this bill.
I am afraid I am suspicious when I see changes to planning laws, especially when they are rushed through like this. I believe that there are grounds for my suspicion. I will desist from going further along that line, but I do fear that we are witnessing a similar process occurring in the ACT; that is, the implementation of a planning system that is friendlier to developers, one that was rejected by the local government organisation and one that is supported by the development lobby.
The government has always said that it tells people to rely on their own legal advice. In this case, the airport group did rely on its own legal advice and it was right. So what does the government do? It changes the law and retrospectively denies them their right to a day in court. As the scrutiny of bills committee reported, there were ways to draft these amendments that would have preserved the legal actions which are on foot in the AAT and the Supreme Court. Nothing reveals what I believe is the true intent behind this legislation more than the fact that the government has chosen to breach longstanding convention and retrospectively deny the airport group their day in court.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (6.14): Professor LJM Cooray in his book The Australian Achievement: from Bondage to Freedom said:
Retrospective legislation destroys the certainty of law, is arbitrary and is vindictive, being invariably directed against identifiable persons or groups.
So let’s be clear: the group in this case is the Canberra International Airport and the identifiable person is Terry Snow. As a knowledgeable property commentator said to me recently, this can actually be characterised as the Terry Snow bitch slapping bill. This is because it is about getting even for the fact that the minister was upstaged on city hill because Mr Snow put more effort into it and came up with a better plan. It is about the minister being caught out on EpiCentre. It is about the minister being caught out in the fact that we are fixing this today because he stuffed up the legislation, as pointed out by Mr Seselja. When you add it all up, it is just about getting even.
Why today? Why late in the day? It is because this will get poor reporting in the media. It will be missed by the TV and probably not picked up by the radio because it will be hidden by the motion of no confidence. In terms of the bill, as pointed out, the Opposition agrees that we should limit third party appeals, but we very rarely will support retrospective legislation. Accordingly, we will be supporting Mr Seselja’s amendment and hoping that the government will see sense and also support it.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (6.15), in reply: I thank members for their comments in this debate. Mr Speaker, going on members’ comments, it would appear that a few people really do not fully understand what it is we are debating today. That is disappointing because the proposal is quite a straightforward one.
First of all, I turn to the comments from Dr Foskey where she indicated that Mr Snow’s legal advice was right and the government got it wrong because Mr Snow
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