Page 915 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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Mr De Domenico: Social justice and fairness and equity.
Mr Lamont: Why do you not ask Mrs Carnell for some of her staff entitlement and then you will stop your bitching?
MS FOLLETT: Yes. As I said, I believe that they are flogging a dead horse. I have no doubt that they will be touting all of these little scandals publicly, as is their wont; but it does not make it any truer.
Land and Planning Appeals
MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, I have a question for Mr Wood, the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. I know that his answer will enlighten the Opposition members. Yesterday and today they have been exposed for their greedy little operation with the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Racing in Victoria, who, I understand, was under the griller today. You might be able to shorten their long faces with this answer.
Mr Humphries: Let us have some relevance, Madam Speaker. You are not interested, Madam Speaker, in a point of order?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Humphries, if you have a point of order stand up and take a point of order. Mr Berry, would you get to your question.
MR BERRY: Thank you, Madam Speaker; I will. Is it the case, as headlined last week in the Canberra Times, that the ACT appeals body lacks the power to enforce its decisions?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, there was a headline in the Canberra Times last week, as Mr Berry indicates, that the appeals mechanisms in the ACT were somehow not enforceable. "ACT's appeals body lacks power to act" was the headline. I think there is a problem in newspapers, as I perceive it, in that the person who writes the story is not the person who writes the headline, and perhaps the subeditors are not always able to pick up the meaning in the story.
The fact is that any exploration of the powers to enforce decisions of the Land and Planning Appeals Board or of the AAT shows that the decisions can be enforced. Their decisions are binding and the amendments that were brought into this chamber last year make that very clear. I would wish to point that out to the community. It is the case that ultimately the mechanism is enforceable in a court of law. That was, I think, the point that was in the Attorney's letter to a person in Kaleen and was the point of the headline. It is clear that the registrar of the Land and Planning Appeals Board has the power to put out an order requiring some person to cease work or to do work in conformity with the decision of the Land and Planning Appeals Board. That should be very carefully stated. The power is there. The registrar may undertake action and, if that action is not followed, court processes can follow, with a fine of up to $20,000.
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