Page 3123 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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continue to sprawl our urban footprints across greenfields of increasing ecological importance. I do hope that the inquiry that has just been referred to the planning committee will look at some other key transport corridor options across Canberra which can withstand an increase in density, not just a few in north Canberra.
Almost finally, we are very pleased with the tune-up program, the commercial building energy efficiency tune-up. The $2 million, I am sure, will help. And I am sure this will just be a start. Once we have our legislated greenhouse gas reduction target we are going to do initiatives like this on a much larger scale.
Finally, we have been talking about horse paddocks a lot as being under threat from greenfields. But the other recreational area that is also under threat is mountain biking, which is losing key areas to development, potentially Kowen and, in the case of Majura Parkway, the Majura pines.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (12.32 am): We look forward to the shadow shadow planning minister coming down and joining us for this debate. He might share the time with Mr Barr.
There are a number of important issues to come out of the hearings into the ACTPLA budget. Development applications continue to be an area of concern for industry. That was one of the first lines of questioning. There are considerable fluctuations in development application numbers and the average time for those applications to be processed. Between 1 January 2009 and 31 March 2009, including time for notification, DA processing took an average of 43 days. This compares to the six months preceding, when it averaged 37.5 days.
I think it is worth putting those numbers into context, because that is the whole range. Of course, the processing of some DAs is a very straightforward process and there are others that are more complex. But that is still a relatively high average and one that is concerning. It was concerning to me too that Mr Savery initially disputed the accuracy of these numbers, despite the planning minister providing the numbers to us in a question on notice.
It is important to note also that, as of 9 April, there was $453 million worth of applications in the merit track. We know that much of the argument is about fast-tracking the federal government stimulus money and development applications, or developments under that, but of course, as we have been arguing for a long time, there is a lot of private sector money that gets held up, sometimes unnecessarily, in the development application process. We want to see a continuation of reforms that would ensure that we reduce the delays as much as possible.
There is the continued use of the stop-the-clock method. That is of concern to applicants, it has been put to us, as has been the lack of acknowledgement of receipt of application. These two issues make it difficult for people to know where their application is in the approval process, and even if it has been received. This has been a consistent area of feedback.
I think that over time there has been a lack of appreciation of the economic importance of what happens in ACTPLA. I do not know whether that is changing in
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