Page 1033 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 6 May 2014
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normal draft variation process or project specific legislation … In summary, there is virtually nothing in the Bill as presently drafted which should be supported.
The Planning Institute advised the following:
What we do not agree on—I will get to these things a little bit more—overall is that basically this is the instrument to do that. We believe that other processes would be more appropriate.
The Inner South Canberra Community Council gave their view of the bill:
But that is the usual way these things are done. We are proposing to step out into the unknown and pass some sort of global all-encompassing bill that will enable governments to handle any kind of project that comes up without passing an enabling act. You could say that each enabling act is different and that this will be more uniform. Perhaps, but I think you are going to have to give away more than you gain by having an act that will be an act for all seasons.
Of course, we heard of problems with the overriding of the Heritage Act and tree protection. In fact, the risk to Aboriginal heritage sites was raised as a particular concern. Mr Marshall said:
I guess in a similar way to our concern about any heritage values or places, we do not want to see heritage ignored in this process, particularly Aboriginal heritage ignored in this process. There may be important heritage values in areas subject to this bill. There may be direct conflict between development proposals and Aboriginal heritage. In fact, there may not be a conflict, but informed decision-making requires that that information is well understood, that the necessary surveys are undertaken and that appropriate steps are taken to protect our heritage into the future.
In a sense, we think that turning off the Heritage Act through this current bill is a very unfortunate step to take for what is often an unrecognised aspect of our heritage.
Many witnesses and submitters commented on the fact that so much power is centralised with the minister and executive. Rather than discharge responsibility to the Assembly, the bill empowers the minister responsible for planning and the executive. One quote was that the net result of all these changes is that planning in the ACT will become less informed and guided by planning expertise, and much more politicised.
The Walter Burley Griffin Society also expressed their concern about the system. Mr Odgers said:
In the society’s view, the major problem of the draft Planning and Development (Project Facilitation) Amendment Bill 2014 is the specious claims about transparency and accountability, when in reality they threaten a marked decline in democratic processes with inevitable consequential poor outcomes in terms of environmental heritage, design and social outcomes.
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