Page 1472 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 7 May 2008
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Clause 5
This clause defines a “project of Territory importance”. This definition is in terms of a project providing critical infrastructure, encouraging substantial amounts of capital for investing in new projects and providing a boost to employment opportunities.
Clause 7
This clause sets out the process that will be followed by the ACT Government in establishing that a project has the status of being of “Territory importance”. In particular, this clause provides the grounds on which a certificate of importance may be prepared; included in this process are provisions requiring three independent statutory commissioners to sign off on the approach being proposed by the Government.
The incorporation of the involvement of the three statutory commissioners—the prices commissioner, with appropriate economic expertise; the Human Rights Commissioner, with human rights expertise; and the environment commissioner, with expertise in environmental matters—is intended to provide satisfaction that the proposal to move a major project is acceptable across these major community requirements. The explanatory memorandum continues:
Clause 8
Two Ministers in the ACT government will … prepare a certificate of importance. The Ministers who will be involved in the preparation of a certificate will be those with responsibility for economic development and for planning.
Clause 9
This is the key provision in the Bill, as it sets out the nature of information required to be incorporated into a certificate of importance. A certificate is required to set out why the initial site chosen for a project is unsuitable and why the second site is suitable, what planning and other laws may need to be modified to expedite the move of the project to the second site and the details of any other matters that the Ministers consider relevant. It is not possible to specify these matters because they will be unique to each proposal; hence, there is recognition that Ministers have the flexibility to include any further information that is considered necessary.
Clause 11 is the safeguard provision. As the objective of this bill is to facilitate the relocation of a major project, particularly through the shortening of the usual planning processes, a safeguard has been incorporated “to provide an indication of acceptance of the change of location of a project of Territory importance by the community”.
In addition to the certification by the three statutory commissioners that a proposal to move a project is reasonable, the bill requires approval to be provided by the Legislative Assembly. The explanatory memorandum states:
This safeguard means that a certificate of importance has to be approved by at least two thirds of the Members of the Legislative Assembly. In reality, this means that at least all major political groups in the Assembly will need to support a certificate of importance. This measure of support will be a surrogate for and indicate broad acceptance within the community for the change of location of the project.
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