Page 2099 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2017
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Nature Conservation Act 2014”. In that situation, the government claims the council should not be required to provide an assessment against the heritage significance criteria.
An unintended consequence of this change could see an application simply refused on any grounds. For example, the council could consider that registration would interfere with the development potential of the place and so refuse an application for heritage registration on this ground. In other words, if no heritage assessment has been done, the council could simply refuse the application without ever having even thought about the heritage significance of the place or object.
Whilst I do not believe that the changes are intended to allow this to happen, the proposed legislation leaves it open to such interpretation, in the view of members of community organisations, including the National Trust. The National Trust has said this about the issue:
The National Trust and the view of the heritage practitioners and community members that I have been in contact with is greatly concerned that the proposed amendments will enable the ACT Heritage Council to make decisions without adequate assessment and advice as to why they reach decisions. Due process requires an open advice/discussion on why heritage listings are made or not made as this is the only way of informing the community of what is our heritage and why. We support the proposals by—
the opposition—
as they retained the original clause but did enable some latitude for items that are covered by other Territory Acts.
For this reason, we are proposing an amendment to this section today. The amendment we propose will deal with the situation outlined in the explanatory statement while allowing for the decision-making requirements of the Heritage Council. Our amendment leaves the current legislation intact and provides that the heritage assessment does not have to be undertaken if the place or object is protected under another territory law or if the application is incomplete. These changes are made in section 29 and section 32.
If an application is incomplete, the change that we are proposing allows for the council to make a decision at the appropriate time of nomination application being received. In regard to whether a place or object is protected under another territory law, our proposed changes allow the council to make the determination about provisional registration at the provisional registration stage, not an assessment stage.
The government’s proposed amendment goes way beyond what is required to solve the issue that was outlined in the explanatory statement and in the briefing we received from the government. While we would rather no changes be made, we are proposing the amendment as an alternative to solve the issue the government has identified. It limits, we believe, the unintended consequences that community and heritage practitioners have foreseen.
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