Page 3488 - Week 11 - Thursday, 19 September 2013
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currently reviewing the legislation, and then we will be making decisions about whether or how to proceed with further auction rounds. The assurance that I would give is that the territory plan sets out very clearly what land can be used for; it sets out very clearly how development proposed for that land consistent with the zoning in the territory plan needs to be assessed, and needs to take account of community consultation and comments and objections made by interested people; and then it has a clear process for assessment.
So the answer to Mr Wall’s question is that the planning system is there to do its job. The land use zoning is very clear about what can and cannot occur in terms of use, and those uses are then subject to a detailed development assessment. As is the case at Uriarra, so it is anywhere else in the city: the planning system will assess impacts and determine, first, whether or not a proposed development is consistent with the land use zoning and, second, whether it is reasonable or whether impacts cannot be mitigated and therefore it cannot be supported.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Wall.
MR WALL: Minister, in light of the Uriarra experience, what elements of the planning and approval process for future large-scale solar developments are being reviewed?
MR CORBELL: In relation to Uriarra, once again Mr Wall pre-empts the fact that there has been no development application lodged yet for that project. The development application needs to be lodged. It then needs to be publicly notified. It then needs to go through a three-week statutory period of public consultation—
Mr Wall: Unless you use your call-in powers.
MR CORBELL: And there he is again saying, “Unless I use my call-in powers.” Well, he is wrong, Madam Speaker. He is absolutely wrong. The minister uses call-in powers if the minister determines it is in the public interest for the minister to be the decision maker. And that occurs at the conclusion of the statutory consultation and assessment process. Mr Wall is out there deliberately misleading residents and deliberately misleading the community by claiming that if I use my call-in powers there is no public consultation. Well, he is wrong, and I refer you, Madam Speaker, to the process that every minister who has ever exercised a call-in power has undertaken—that is, the public consultation process runs its course, the agency referral and assessment process runs its course, the public notification process runs its course and then, if the minister determines it is in the public interest, the minister determines he will be the decision maker.
Mr Wall: On a point of order on relevance, Madam Speaker, I asked the minister what elements of the planning and approval process were going to be reviewed following the outcomes of what has happened at Uriarra. He has not, as yet—with 10 seconds to go—touched on those changes.
MADAM SPEAKER: I uphold Mr Wall’s point of order and ask the minister to be directly relevant.
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