Page 1786 - Week 05 - Thursday, 2 April 2009
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This is the planning system over the last few years under this government. We know why the minister did not want to talk about it. He only wanted to talk about the legislation. We have bipartisan consensus on the broad aspects of the legislation, yet the system is still not working. It is not working because they have not bothered to make the cultural changes that are needed. It is not working because they still do not really listen to the issues. They have the odd roundtable, they make a couple of changes—some of those changes are welcome—but they refuse to address the issues at the core, which is making the cultural and structural changes, having the resources where they are needed and then looking to broader issues like having a land release policy that is responsive, having a tax system that actually encourages investment in the industry and streamlining things, not just in schools. This is what we need to be debating in the planning system and we welcome the former planning minister into the debate.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (12.24): I am pleased to participate in this debate today and to comment on the very detailed and, I think, weighty statement that the minister put forward in this place, because it really does reiterate the significant long-term strategic approach that Labor has always sought to bring to planning in this place. It is interesting that Mr Seselja is focused on making sure the regulatory system works better. Of course, regulation of land use, regulation of development, is just one part of planning and what we see from the Liberal Party is a very narrow perspective on planning. To Mr Seselja and the Liberal Party, planning is just a regulatory mechanism, a regulatory issue. It is just about making sure that there is as little regulation as possible. “Get rid of the red tape and just get out of the way of development.” That is essentially the position of the Liberal Party.
But, of course, we know that planning is much more than simply about regulating development activity. Planning is about adopting a long-term approach to how we manage growth and activity in the city and how we ensure that the city grows in ways which are not only efficient economically but also equitable and sustainable. And that has been the government’s focus in the development of its long-term planning policies for the city.
It is important to reiterate that it has been the Labor administration that has put in place long-term planning frameworks for the city. The development of the Canberra spatial plan and the development of the sustainable transport plan are long-term planning frameworks that today are guiding the future growth and development of our city. The Liberals are so prickly on this issue because they have no long-term vision of their own. Their only vision is to reduce staffing in the planning authority, to target those individuals that they feel are getting in the way of appropriate development assessment and to, instead, simply open it up for as little regulation as possible. Labor explicitly rejects that view of planning. Labor asserts that planning is a public activity and one which would adopt a long-term strategic view, not solely the regulatory approach adopted by those opposite.
Let us talk a little bit more about the long-term strategic approach that underpins Labor’s approach to planning in this city. The spatial plan outlines how we will
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