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I want to give some specific examples, in my time as Minister, of the difficulties imposed by the dual planning system. We have the example, of course, of our Magistrates Court building. Appropriate plans were designed and were thwarted at the national level, at considerable cost to the ACT taxpayer. After much delay that is now finally reaching fruition. Look at the hospice on Acton Peninsula. There was a clear wish of the ACT Government of the time - I know that there were some disputes at the political level - for the hospice to be located on Acton Peninsula. The politics, I believe, of the National Capital Planning Authority in saying, “If you are going to have to do it you can do it there” or “No, we do not want you to have it there; we want you now to put it over there”, involved us in some costs and a lot of messing about that was entirely unwarranted.

Then we had the situation of the Kingston towers, which was not a proposal emanating from the ACT Planning Authority but was one proposed as a solution to a perceived problem by the National Capital Planning Authority. At the local level, we went along with it, to give the proposal light of day and to see what the community thought of it. It was not our proposal at all. In the end, we got the flak for it and then the National Capital Planning Authority pulled the plug on it. This dual planning and inconsistency between the National Planning Authority and our interests made life very difficult.

Let me look at the operations of the two planning authorities. I have not gone into this year's budget, which came down yesterday, but the 1993-94 budget papers indicated that we have something like 80 staff in the Planning Authority and a budget of just over $5m. The National Capital Planning Authority has a staff of 70 and a budget of $7.3m, and lots of other money that it manages as well. The staff is about the same. Let us look at the workloads. At one period when I was Minister, I asked for some figures and was given these figures: While the ACT Planning Authority had given something like 6,000 approvals in this period, the National Capital Planning Authority had given 200. The workload on our Planning Authority, as I think members appreciate, is truly immense. They are handling an enormous amount of work. Members would be aware of the enormous amount of public consultation that they undertake in addition to all those approvals. The workload on our Planning Authority is enormous, as they do a great deal of the very significant planning around Canberra, as well as all the local level approvals of buildings and the like.

The National Capital Planning Authority also engages in public consultation. I told them on one occasion how well they had done it. At last year's Floriade they had a display tent in which they reviewed the central national area. Members may have seen it. It was an excellent display and was very well presented. They sought public comment on what Canberra's central national area should look like. You may recall that they had some Pryor cartoons of how different people might have viewed Canberra. It was comical but effective and was a very good means of getting the public interested in it - not just the Canberra public, but the people who came to Canberra to see Floriade. I thought that it was very appropriate and very effective.

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