Page 5472 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 8 December 2009
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Since the first report in June this year, there has been a great deal of activity by officers in a number of ACT government agencies to ensure that the ACT has met the tight application time frames and project commencement requirements set by the commonwealth. Indeed, implementation of the nation building plan in the ACT has been an opportunity to demonstrate and showcase whole-of-government collaboration and to take that collaboration to a new level—work that will remain as a legacy of this exercise long after the last project funded through the stimulus package is complete.
The commonwealth government’s response to the global financial crisis has resulted in an unprecedented burst of investment in infrastructure in the ACT through the nation building plan, and it has been investment with an eye to the future. In addition to the commonwealth’s stated aims of rapid delivery of economic stimulus measures to support employment and growth and to foster a more resilient Australia, the commonwealth and the states and territories have taken the opportunity to build on a number of COAG reforms already underway. These have included reforms to social housing and microeconomic reform to enhance delivery processes.
The ACT government, in turn, has been able to use this historic investment to leverage its own policy agendas in the areas of education and housing. We were already investing massively in school infrastructure; now we are in a position to do more. We were already delivering once-in-a-generation change in the area of social housing, delivering more affordable and appropriate housing to Canberrans most in need; and we are now doing more.
I turn to some of the specific process and policy reforms that have been implemented, leveraging the commonwealth’s stimulus spending. In the area of planning, a number of important regulatory improvements have been made. In some cases the need for a development application has been done away with, where prescribed physical parameters have been met. In others, where a development application has been required, new regulations have allowed for shortened notification and review periods.
The school construction program has been expedited by exemptions from development applications that took effect on 23 March this year. A notifiable instrument regarding regulated trees has also come into force for projects funded as part of the building the education revolution. A further regulation in relation to social housing commenced on 24 June 2009, and a DA is still required for any multi-unit social housing dwelling or non-exempt single dwelling but with a 10-day public notification period.
With the enactment of the Planning and Development Act 2007, work is advancing on a number of new codes relating to residential, including social housing and multi-unit housing, community facilities, subdivision, engineering, landscape assets and infrastructure standards, commercial development, and industrial development. These codes will help agencies standardise their practices, some of which are statutory and some of which are based on historical practice and internal standards. The task force has also commissioned work on TAMS infrastructure standards.
The government has delivered not just reforms in the processes that lead up to the commencement of a capital project, but reforms that go to the very business of project
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