Page 1022 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 24 March 2015
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perhaps will not apply to the University of Canberra. The government will be taking every advantage to exploit the property and this will mean that charges which are a disincentive to development elsewhere in Canberra will not apply on this site.
The government claims that the planning system is important. However, anyone who has paid attention to the government’s actions in the planning space will know that this is simply not true at present. The government does not see the planning system as very important at all. It sees the planning system as a nuisance for its own projects and essential for everybody else’s. When the planning processes get in the way of its pet projects, it simply legislates to bypass the system.
The list of examples is becoming extremely long. In the last couple of years alone we have seen the project facilitation bill, which the government abandoned. Then there was the Symonston mental health facility, which was necessary because the government could not be bothered to go through the normal planning processes for several years and then realised that the project was so far behind that the only way they could make it happen was to bypass the planning process. However, even when that legislation was passed they did not act on their powers. In actual fact, had they put in a normal DA at the time it could have been approved; therefore the legislation was not necessary at all. Who can forget the capital metro bill? The government knows that Mr Corbell’s tram will never be built unless it bypasses the proper planning processes. And as Mr Smyth has diligently reminded me, the mother of all bypassing of planning processes is the Mr Fluffy issue. We are yet to see all the details of what it will mean for neighbourhoods across the ACT.
The government is making a habit of ignoring proper planning processes. Instead of working within the rules like everybody else must, the government thinks it is above the law. The government thinks its projects are so important that they should be exempt from scrutiny and the rigours of proper planning processes. Instead, the government simply says, “Trust us. Give us the power. We know what this city needs. The laws are getting in the way of our vision, but don’t worry; we are the government so we can bypass all the rules.” This is arrogant, Madam Speaker. The government has totally lost touch with reality because it thinks that its projects are above the law.
The truth is that the development of land at the University of Canberra for residential or commercial purposes risks seriously undermining the planning and property regime in Canberra. If a massive parcel of land is not subject to the same rules as adjacent blocks held in private hands it will discourage risk taking and potentially devalue property at or around the site. We may have a situation where land at the University of Canberra is not subject to genuine market valuations, not subject to lease variation charges, not subject to rates and not subject to land tax. This is a real concern and risks undermining investment in the ACT.
I would also like to comment on the processes used by the government to get to this point. The bill was introduced to the Assembly on 19 February. That very day a briefing request was made to the government by the opposition. The opposition was keen to find out about the bill as soon as possible. However, as has become the government’s usual practice, the briefing was not provided. In fact, it was only after a further request last Wednesday, a month after the initial request, that a briefing was
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