Page 2823 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 22 November 1989
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I was rather surprised that the Deputy Chief Minister refused leave for me to move this motion because I would have thought that he might have wanted to listen to what I had to say on the subject, planning being a very important and crucial issue and one which has had scant attention from this Government up until now.
Indeed, I had discussed with Mr Moore this proposal to adjourn the debate on his motion, and he agreed that there was some merit in that. He also suggested - and I do not think he will mind my saying this - that if the Government, in the meantime, until the planning proposals are in place, thought it desirable to set up an interim advisory body, it could do so. There is nothing to stop the Government doing it. But to embed another committee into the existing planning system currently under review as a permanent institution, when it quite simply could be disestablished in a few months' time when the final planning arrangements are put forward by the Government, if they are agreed by this Assembly, seems to me to be, as I said before, premature and pointless.
The Government's response through the Deputy Chief Minister is perhaps indicative of the fact that they are very sensitive about this planning issue. What we have had for some weeks now - for some months, in fact - is a discussion paper. At the time some of us said that the planning system was in such disarray that what we needed was not a discussion paper but some draft legislation. However, since that discussion paper was put forward many weeks have elapsed and we still have not had any indication from the Government as to what consultations it has had and what comment, if any, it has received on that discussion paper. We still have no program for when, if at all, we are going to get the draft legislation which the Government has promised to straighten out our planning arrangements so that everybody concerned knows what the procedure is, knows what he has to do to get a proposal through the system, and knows what the appeals process is.
So I submit that it is a sensible thing for the Government to get on with the business of defining what it sees as the potential planning processes and arrangements for the Territory, to put them before the Assembly so that they can be debated, to allow some public debate on the questions to allow those interested parties out there to make their input, and then, if the sort of committee that Mr Moore is proposing is seen to be a desirable and a useful thing, to incorporate it into the permanent arrangement. I do not see anything sinister about that. It is a fairly straightforward proposal. For the Government to take offence at it, I believe, merely reflects its sensitivity to the fact that it has made no progress on the planning problem whatsoever and that it sees this as some kind of criticism.
It is not intended in that fashion at all. It is intended to be a constructive proposal. I seek the endorsement
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