Page 1034 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 6 May 2014
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The lack of professional opinion in the processes outlined in the bill was articulated to the committee. Mr Martin said:
Possibly, but the real issue there is that the powers rest with the minister in many of these aspects. He is making decisions on a whole range of planning, heritage and other issues and replacing expert advice. I do not think one personally can actually have the knowledge to make, if you like, an informed and correct decision with respect to heritage issues, because he has not got training and experience in heritage issues. Therefore, I think the process is flawed in that way if he is not seeking appropriate independent expert advice.
The Chairperson of the Belconnen Community Council commented on the broad scope of power the minister has.
One never knows what influences might occur on the Assembly or on that particular planning minister some time in the future. It is not necessarily just confined to the current incumbents or anything like that, but at the same time there are always pressures that can be brought to bear, and the whole purpose of legislation is usually to limit those pressures.
The Woden Valley Community Council said through Dr Stewart:
The second point is that the bill gives the executive—not the parliament; the executive, that is, the planning minister and the cabinet—excessive and unaccountable powers over development associated with projects of significance or special precincts. Even the role of the Assembly is watered down because all the Assembly can do is vote to disallow the instruments that give effect to the proposed fast-track legislation. I guess that they are two key points about how the institutions of planning are unbalanced as a result of this bill.
Madam Speaker, this is bad legislation and should not be passed. This is what we heard from the community during this process. If the point of the committee inquiry was to get input and to get advice, well, we heard the input, we heard the advice, and the committee clearly heard that this bill should not be passed.
An interesting point was that a number of people from community councils made reference to an email received from Mr Rattenbury. A copy of the email was provided to the committee. The email included this from Mr Rattenbury:
Having looked closely at the legislation, I believe the advantage of the 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. We know that major projects are much more likely to trigger the use of the ministerial call-in, so we are pleased that this new legislation introduces a new level of decision making through the Legislative Assembly.
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