Page 1384 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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apply in that first round. There are further deadlines on 15 and 31 May, and then finally, for round 3 of the primary schools program, applications must be submitted by 10 July. All in all, $16.3 million will be available for the territory across government and non-government schools in the 2008-09 year, rising to $125.4 million in 2009-10 and $87.5 million in 2010-11, giving a total of $229.3 million.
Turning to the regulation itself, members will note that it is available on the legislation register, but I will go through it briefly. It puts in place exemptions for schools around new buildings or alterations to buildings—for example, halls, auditoriums, gymnasiums, libraries and classrooms—provided that the height of the building, if the building is within 30 metres of the boundary of a residential zone, is not more than six metres above existing ground level. There are setbacks, so as not to be within six metres of the boundary of a residential zone.
There is a range of other provisions around minor alterations that do not increase the gross floor area of the building by more than five per cent. There are measures around school entrances—for example, porticoes, awnings, canopies, landing and access ramps—school verandahs, including balconies, awnings and porticoes, school signs, playground and exercise equipment, and fences. There is a range of practical measures—shade structures, covered external walkways, flagpoles, water tanks, landscape gardening, car parks, bicycle enclosures, toilet and change room facilities, driveways, security cameras, external lighting and demountable and transportable buildings, and also some provisions around class 10B structures.
All of these measures have been extensively discussed in a range of briefings with other parties and, as I understand it, have been supported. I welcome that support. This is a very practical way that this Assembly can assist our schools. It is an example of how the new planning system can respond effectively through the creation of codes and exemption tracks to enable these sorts of developments to occur quickly.
It was the subject of a question yesterday in question time in relation to extending these sorts of provisions into the private sector. I would make the point, obviously, that the majority of these issues are already largely dealt with in exemptions within residential construction. Of course, the removal of third-party appeal rights is consistent with what occurs for major commercial developments in the town centres. It is also worth noting that this means that potentially hundreds of development applications are removed from the system, thereby freeing up the time of the Planning and Land Authority to concentrate on those more significant private sector applications that will be in the merit track in particular, thereby unclogging the system. That is another important element in terms of the flexibility that the planning system now has to respond to these sorts of issues.
So the clear message here is that, by ensuring that these regulations are not disallowed, by sending a clear message to all stakeholders in the education sector and the building and construction sector, we will be able to get on with the delivery of $230 million worth of investment in our schools. We note the very tight timetable that the commonwealth have provided, but we are certainly very pleased at the speed with which they have been able to respond, most notably to the signing of a bilateral agreement. We have been able to submit all of our applications in round 1 of this
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