Page 1347 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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you guys are still together at this stage. We look forward to seeing the re-emergence of this bill at some stage.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (3.04), in reply: I will close this part of the debate with some very mixed feelings. The first thing I would like to say to members is that this is not radical legislation. It is based on community feedback. Mr Parton is a member of the planning committee and he took part in the DA inquiry. To quite an extent, with the parts of the legislation relating to community accountability, it is about trying to choose the things that the community told us about that would be capable of being legislated for, as a crossbencher.
Some of it, certainly, should not have been done by way of legislation, if the government had got its act together. As Mr Parton mentioned, the overwhelmingly obvious one is that DA information should be put up, and stay up, in a way that is available to the public. I remember talking about this in the Seventh Assembly, when I was first elected. Of course, I came here as an ex-IT manager, and I was well aware that this was entirely technically possible. I am quite happy to agree that the best way of keeping information up on a website is not to require it by legislation. It should be done by the planning department. They should not need to be told about it like this. They have been told about it many times in planning committee reports that have mentioned this.
You can hear from my voice that quite a few parts of this legislation reflect frustration—frustration that I feel and, even more than that, frustration that the community feels. Every day I get letters and emails—I am sure every other member, every day, gets emails—from people who feel totally disrespected and frustrated by the planning system. We have an obligation to do better than what we are doing with the planning system. Whatever we think about it, we are living together in Canberra and we need a system that works for the community, as well as the government and developers. We need to do this better so that this is not a constant source of friction.
I do appreciate, as Minister Gentleman pointed out, that ACTPLA are doing a review of the planning system. I also appreciate that they have been on about this for three years so far and the chief planning executive’s highest stated aim for this review is that it should comprise one page. That is a laudable aim, but accountability and a good planning system are probably vastly more important than that aim. I am very unsure how long it will take before this review sees the light of day—probably another three years.
I have been very heartened by the fact that I have received public expressions of support for my bill from Woden Valley Community Council, Inner South Canberra Community Council, Yarralumla Residents Association, Griffith Narrabundah Community Association and many others, including many individuals, some of whom were nice enough to say that they had emailed other MLAs to ask them to please vote for the legislation.
I understand that the debate on the legislation will be adjourned today. Hopefully, a few of the wrinkles will be ironed out. As my colleague Mr Parton said—I have to totally agree with him—it is very hard to try and draft legislation in any sphere, but
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