Page 3864 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 19 September 2017
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Clause 9 of the bill also means that those who are storing certain quantities of dangerous substances and have not registered the premises by the time the amendments commence will be required to lodge a development application to continue storing the substances. This result is necessary to ensure that such storage is known and regulated and is considered fair and appropriate, given the proposed transitional period of six months.
The government is of the view that the bill is a considered and reasonable way of monitoring from a planning perspective the storage of certain quantities of dangerous substances to ensure the safety of the community. I would like to repeat, because I think it is important, that those parts of the bill that relate to the new planning assessment framework for dangerous substances will be commenced by notice, so the government has a period of six months to make industry and the community aware of the new provisions before they commence.
I would now like to turn to the third set of amendments made by the bill that relate to the referral by the minister of the draft Territory Plan variations to the relevant committee of the Legislative Assembly. (Extension of time granted.)
At present, after public consultation but before the draft variation to the Territory Plan becomes a Territory Plan variation, section 73 of the Planning and Development Act provides discretion to the minister to refer a draft variation to the appropriate Legislative Assembly committee. If the minister refers a draft variation to the committee, the minister may not take action in relation to the draft variation until the committee reports on the draft variation, or six months has passed since the draft variation was referred to the committee.
In accordance with the parliamentary agreement of the Ninth Legislative Assembly, clause 4 of the bill amends section 73 to replace the minister’s discretion to refer a draft variation to the committee with a requirement that the minister must refer the draft variation to the appropriate committee within five working days after the day the public availability notice for the variation is notified. New section 73(3), inserted by clause 4, requires the committee to tell the minister within a specified number of days after the draft plan is referred to the committee whether or not it will prepare a report on the draft variation. If the committee does not notify the minister that it will be reporting on the draft variation, then clause 5, new section 73A, permits the minister to exercise their powers under section 76 of the Planning and Development Act and approve the draft variation or refer it back to the planning and land authority.
Mr Assistant Speaker, if the committee notifies the minister that it will be reporting on the draft variation within the required time, the minister will not be permitted to take action in relation to the draft variation until either the committee reports on the variation or six months has passed since the referral to the committee, whichever is earlier, as is currently the case under the Planning and Development Act. The obligation to refer draft variations to the committee will not apply to special variations, nor to technical variations under part 5(4) of the Planning and Development Act, as these amendments are minor in nature.
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