Page 678 - Week 02 - Thursday, 6 March 2008
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enter premises has been sought from an occupier and rejected, it is a bit rich to make it a strict liability offence for that same occupier not to actively assist an ACTPLA inspector to exercise their powers if they find the unwelcome inspector on their premises. Emotions are likely to be running high when these encounters take place, and it is easy to imagine that these powers could be used unreasonably or maliciously.
The necessity for a court order is a welcome safeguard against the arbitrary exercise of these powers, but I know that it can be easy to convince a magistrate of the necessity for issuing an order in an ex parte hearing where the other party does not have the opportunity to present their side of the argument. Perhaps the government could ask the Ombudsman to keep a watching brief over the manner in which ACTPLA exercises these powers.
I do have some concerns with the public notification provisions in this bill. In existing suburbs, merit track applications should always be required to comply with the notification requirement to deliver letters to neighbouring lessees. I am not sure whether the regulations are the appropriate place to describe what types of development application can be exempted from this requirement. At least a disallowable instrument allows the Assembly an opportunity to challenge any inappropriate prescriptions.
In relation to that, the territory plan was given to us today. It is rather large for we who have been sitting in the house all day to get around it and see what differences there are from the draft. The regulations are actually the third part of this triumvirate—the legislation, the plan and the regulations. We discovered it on the web today. Of course, we could have looked on Monday, the 4th. We sat on Tuesday. We would not have had time to have really read them. For a process that took so long and was so good at the consultation bit—and I commend the officers for that—to have this sort of sudden logjam at the end, I think, is unfortunate. Given that it took so long, it is a pity that we could not have either had this stuff out there a month before or waited till next month. Anyway, here we are today.
While I am on the issue of notification requirements, which I was about three minutes ago, I am sure there will be many places where even code track developments, which are exempt from effective notification requirements, will outrage surprised neighbours who will then complain bitterly and understandably about the lack of consultation. The one-size-fits-all approach adopted by the government is fraught with potential and foreseeable pitfalls.
Very early in my time at the Assembly, when I first met Mr Savery and this legislation reform was on the cards, we had that conversation about community involvement. It was made very clear that, after the legislation and the regulations are put into practice, after the general framework has been developed, that is it for the community. We do know that, while many of the community were engaged in the process, the individual people who will see the change in their suburb, maybe see the yellow poster which is usually very small and often gone after a few days, will say, “I was not consulted.” Even though the government say, “Yes, we did consult you on this major change,” they will not feel they have been consulted about their issue. I do not think you can avoid it by legislating it out.
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