Page 2475 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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with taxation and general pricing. The same fundamental principles apply in the housing market.
The importance of efficiency in ACTPLA is something else I would like to talk about. The delays in development approval are highlighted on page 401 of budget paper No 4. This information shows that, for single dwelling development applications, only 85 per cent were assessed within the statutory time frames in 2006-07. For other development applications, only 75 per cent were assessed within the statutory time frames. This issue was raised in estimates committee hearings on 21 June, and I think I raised it in annual reports or estimates last year on a separate occasion then. The minister pointed out that these levels were within the government’s target. I remind the government that these are statutory time frames. They are not merely policy documents of the government; they are time frames that are enshrined in law in this territory.
The government sought to explain why it was not able to meet its statutory time frames. The Chief Planning Executive gave an example of the kind of delay that might occur, stating:
… if we give a response that we want to achieve improved environmental performance in a building, it is not something that you can just assign through a condition. You go back to the proponent and you say, “This is what we want to achieve. These are ways in which we think you can do it. Are you willing to or not?” That all takes time. More often than not applicants are prepared to engage in that: they know that the alternative is that we may give a decision that forces them to go to appeal because they do not like the prospect of that outcome. So it is often to the benefit of the development approval process to go through those exercises.
Forgive my scepticism, Mr Speaker, but this sounds an awful lot like an attempt by ACTPLA to become a fellow architect for building development. The government claims that it cannot just assign its requirements through a condition, that it must put forward its own proposals for the building. It seems to me to show a complete lack of regard for objective standards and gives the government arbitrary power to meddle in the design of buildings, an issue that I have raised many times in the past. At the end of the day it is not the government’s money that is on the line in these developments. It can afford to mess around all it wants, making demands for alternative design and going beyond the time frames set by this Assembly. At the end of the day, it is the property sector of the ACT and the residents of the ACT that are hurt by these delays and this interference.
Another important factor identified in housing affordability is the cost of land and the issue of supply. This is one part of a wide range of considerations, but it is an important part nonetheless. It is quite clear that the government has failed to react quickly to the problem of housing affordability. It has failed to formulate a proper understanding of supply-side issues such as land release. Indeed, the minister conceded this very point in estimates committee hearings on 21 June, when he said:
It is clear that policies that have been pursued by governments at both the state and territory level and the federal level over nearly the last decade have largely been around fuelling the demand side. Initiatives such as first home owner grants
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