Page 1771 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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against the need to avoid spurious claims which unreasonably hold up developments, cause frustration and push up prices as a result.
To this end, the changes to third party appeals as a result of this bill are generally positive. However, there is one glaring anomaly which needs to be corrected, and I will be moving an amendment in this area in the detail stage. This amendment will close the loophole which allows groups to be set up in order to gain standing in the AAT to challenge development approvals. I will give more details when the amendment is debated. In summary, I think it is crucially important that we get that balance right in terms of third party appeals. It is not in the community’s interest for us to have unreasonable appeals holding up developments.
Under the new legislation, that is taken care of in the code track, but in the other tracks there is still a glaring loophole, in my opinion. The concern relates to apartment complexes or other developments being held up by unreasonable claims in the AAT, with objectors not being faced with any real financial loss as a result of taking on these claims. This can cost proponents significant amounts of money. Of course, that is almost always passed on to first home buyers.
Mr Barr: Except if they are in A10 zones in Evatt.
MR SESELJA: I note that the minister is champing at the bit to contribute to my speech and I welcome his input, but perhaps he could wait until he closes the debate on the agreement in principle stage.
I emphasise that it is important that we get that balance right. The amendments that I will move later represent a good step forward. Once again, I acknowledge that this legislation is an improvement on what is now in place, but I do think that taking that extra step would be very useful and would avoid significant delays occurring in the future.
On the issue of use as development, one of the stated goals of the legislation is closer integration of leasing and development assessment so that the planning system operates more efficiently. This is one of the more controversial aspects of the bill. It is our position that this aspect of the bill undermines the leasehold system and threatens to create uncertainty. We will therefore be opposing this aspect of the bill.
Broadly, our concern is that, rather than making the planning system operate more efficiently, it undermines the leasehold system by creating uncertainty around the rights of landowners in the territory. It does this by linking use to development; that is, where a lease provides a bundle of use rights to a leaseholder, the ability to take up those use rights is subject to the need for a development approval. This undermines a leaseholder’s rights and therefore undermines the leasehold system.
This part of the bill has drawn strong criticism from numerous industry groups, most noticeably the property council, as well as the law society. Indeed, the law society took the unprecedented step of saying that it could not support the bill while the concept of use as development remained. I will quote from comments made by Alfonso del Rio, representing the law society, when he appeared before the planning and environment committee some time ago. He said:
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