Page 728 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 April 2014
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the community, but the community gained energy-efficient social housing and new school buildings.
The Greens supported this legislation after gaining some improvements to the process such as appointing a cultural planner to manage and report on social impacts, ensuring full public notification including a sign at the development site, a commitment to avoid inappropriate development in cul-de-sacs, and a range of social and environmental design conditions. This legislation had a sunset clause to ensure that it would only be used for projects under this package.
In a similar vein, projects under this legislation will also be subject to sunset clauses, which will vary from project to project. This legislation is a framework for future projects. Thus, questions about exactly what areas it will cover and what the issues for those areas are cannot be answered today. Those details will be in individual project declarations and open for public consultation before going to cabinet, the Assembly then ACTPLA for those three layers of decision-making.
I believe the advantage of this bill is that it will provide an alternate option to the use of call-in powers, meaning that significant development projects of substantial public benefit for the ACT can be expedited through a more transparent and democratic process than the use of ministerial call-in powers. The ACT Greens have consistently questioned the use of call-in powers since the 1990s on the basis that they deny access to third-party appeals as a mechanism to fast-track developments.
Previous Greens MLAs have advocated for call-in decisions to be disallowable instruments, in effect giving the final decision to the members of the Legislative Assembly rather than just one minister making these decisions, and this process does just that. Cabinet and the Assembly will need to decide whether each individual proposal meets the criteria. Does it have substantial public benefit? Does it have major significance to the territory? These are the issues that need to be considered—not any building anywhere, as Mr Coe rather inaccurately suggested in his remarks.
We know that major projects are much more likely to trigger the use of ministerial call in; so we are pleased that this new legislation introduces a new level of decision-making through the Legislative Assembly. Our elected representatives will be able to bring community concerns to the debate on the floor of the Assembly to examine the proposal against these key questions before the DA process begins.
As each declaration will need six weeks of public consultation, issues will be raised in the media and, undoubtedly, through direct communication to us before going to cabinet and before coming to the Assembly. Thus, the key issues should be clear to each MLA before they decide whether to support the project or not. ACTPLA will also go through its normal DA processes, assessing each proposal to ensure that it meets building codes and fits within the extensive requirements of the territory plan.
The bill provides a transparent and accountable mechanism for the government to clearly signal its intention to expedite priority projects at the beginning of the decision-making process. If the government wants to get on with something, I think it is much more honest to say, “The government is of the view that this project is urgent
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