Page 1390 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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a month ago, we have worked positively and constructively with the government to propose amendments which we feel look after the community’s interests while still allowing the government to meet the commonwealth’s requirements and the requirements for an expeditious development approval process. The results that we have today are not exactly as we would have proposed them. However, this is subordinate legislation; it is not legislation which can be amended. It is legislation which we as a whole support.
The changes that have been made to the regulations which we suggested—and we are very pleased to say that the government took on board in a cooperative process—included things like clarification of the definition of a preschool and including a review mechanism to apply to the many minor exemptions to development applications such as school signs, shade structures, water tanks et cetera. We had thought these were already exempt from the DA requirements, so we are very pleased to have the legislation clarified. And that is an area we might build on to work further; as the belief was that most of this was exempt, this might be an area where further work could be done.
The regulations now say that, instead of having a sunset clause at the end of the commonwealth funding period, ACTPLA must review the use and effectiveness of each type of exemption in four years time. We have proposed that the infrastructure coordinator-general’s office should coordinate feedback on the projects which ACTPLA should then use to do the review. ACTPLA will then make a summary of the comments from the community to provide to the minister before he decides whether or not to continue the exemptions.
We have proposed this because we understand that there are many frustrations with the current planning process and we support streamlining the planning process where it is non-contentious in the community. For developments which are more sizeable, such as new buildings and extensions, we have proposed that the Assembly can resolve to continue the exemption in four years time if the Assembly is so minded, which I assume it would be if the Assembly found that the exemptions were not contentious. We have also proposed that the exemption for developments which can increase the gross floor area by up to five per cent will expire in 2013.
We would have preferred to link this regulation more closely to the commonwealth funding package, but the government thought it would be easier to apply it broadly to all schools in the ACT for four years. We have some concerns about this, but we will not be blocking it. As I have said before, we are not going to be blocking the regulation over this.
Finally, I would like to say that in the past month there has been a lot of discussion about the flaws in our planning system. The Greens are very happy to participate in these discussions. But we do not want to see piecemeal changes to the planning system—bit by bit—which amount to basically amending the planning legislation by stealth. Next week is going to be the first anniversary of this new system. I understand that ACTPLA and ACAT are still dealing with DAs from the old system. Let us see the new system settle in and then have a major overview of it rather than piecemeal changes on the floor of the Assembly.
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