Page 3289 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 September 2014
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Being the national capital, Canberra often has jurisdictional issues when it comes to planning and development processes, and it is no different for heritage. In the past, the ACT Heritage Council was able to list sites on designated land. However, a legal revision of this ability brought the governments to the conclusion that actually the ACT government does not have jurisdiction on designated land—largely land in the parliamentary triangle. This meant that earlier last year, the ACT Heritage Council decided not to provisionally register a large number of sites on designated land, from the Carillon to Parliament House itself. Unfortunately, this means that there are now a large number of significant sites that do not have any legal protection, and it is not an issue that the commonwealth government seems to be particularly interested in.
In principle, the Greens support the bill today. However, I note that there are a few areas where there is certainly scope for improvement. I note that the government is considering a further minor amendment bill early next year. In that context, I raise some issues that I believe warrant further investigation and consideration by the heritage unit.
It was disappointing to learn that aside from the removal of the ministerial call-in power, no other amendments were made to the bill in response to the public submissions last year, including many recommendations, some minor, from the Heritage Council. The government also did not do a summary of issues raised with consultation or a government response to those issues. I believe that this is disappointing for members of the community who have made a contribution, because communities have a right to understand how the government has chosen to respond to concerns raised by interested stakeholders. Perhaps this may still arise in the context of the next round of minor amendments.
This bill changes the appeal provisions in this legislation. The opportunities for review remain the same but the interested persons, or the people who are now defined in clause 10 of this bill as being able to appeal decisions of the Heritage Council, have been restricted. Interested persons will now not include the broader public, and will only include ACTPLA, the conservator, the NCA if relevant, the owner or occupier of a place, the architect or designer of a place, the person who made the nomination and RAOs when relevant.
The Greens believe that there are other groups that also have a legitimate right to participate in heritage conservation decisions—for example, the National Trust and the Institute of Architects, who are excluded unless they are the ones who made the original nomination.
Although the public generally will no longer be able to appeal against a decision of the Heritage Council not to provisionally register a place or object, I note that the bill does create a process whereby, if a party has further information or argument about a site or object, they are able to lodge a new nomination for that same site or place.
Aside from this one glaring omission of rights, the majority of appeal provisions remain the same—for example, property owners will still be able to appeal against the decision to register their place.
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