Page 679 - Week 02 - Thursday, 6 March 2008
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The ambulatory provisions in clauses 46 and 49 are sensible. However, I urge the government to keep a close track of the standards on which our legislation relies because ambulatory clauses have a nasty habit of becoming obsolete or inappropriate as the organisation setting the standard changes or, alternatively, if the definition of the standard in the regulation becomes obsolete due to technical variations, standards and nomenclature.
I have been told in briefings that the new definition of single dwelling house in this bill will mean that a single dwelling can, in some circumstances, have two kitchens or food preparation areas. I have been assured that this will not be a means by which landlords can get around urban intensification regulations and squeeze two households into the one premises. Rather, it is for accommodating the very different families we have in our midst and is perhaps a solution, one part, to the affordable accommodation problem.
I had misgivings about building houses that, by their design, will result in greater energy demands, but I do not think that micro managing and regulatory interference to the extent of proscribing two kitchens is at all appropriate. Indeed, I can see it, if used wisely, being a very good thing. I will be supporting the bill.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.39): As Mr Seselja, the leader said, the Liberal opposition will be supporting this bill, but there are some elements that I do need to reinforce concerns about. They must be scrutinised over time to ensure that they do not have unintended consequences.
There are issues in relation to compliance in this legislation. I had a discussion with the officials the other day about concerns about compliance. Compliance has always been probably one of the most difficult parts of planning legislation in many ways because actually it does, for the most part, mean that people have to sort of make adjustments to existing buildings. This is often a problem.
I think that over time there have been a number of attempts to increase the powers to make compliance easier. Every time we see changes to the compliance legislation the minister at the table usually says that this has fixed the problem. So far we have not managed to fix the problem. I hope that the changes made on this occasion will address the issues satisfactorily, that there can be better and more just compliance when the need arises and that the enforcement of compliance orders will become more streamlined.
There are two other areas that are of particular concern to me in relation to the signing off of this bill. One was touched on by Mr Seselja, which is the removal in this arrangement of the final variation to the territory plan when you take an area that was, under old parlance, designated land and turn it into an estate plan et cetera.
For those of us who have been around for a while, I draw on the experience that we had in Amaroo. The building of the Amaroo school was a case in point. That was defined land under the territory plan. The people who built in Burdekin Street, across the road from it, were told that, yes, there would be a school there; the playing fields
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