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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4925 ..

Clause 79 agreed to.

Clause 80

MS HORODNY (11.55): I seek leave to move together amendments Nos 22 and 23 circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

MS HORODNY: I move:

Page 37, line 32, paragraph (a), proposed paragraph 276(1)(a), add "and".

Page 37, lines 33 to 34, paragraph (a), proposed paragraph 276(1)(b), omit the proposed paragraph.

Mr Speaker, these amendments all relate to the Government's restriction of appeal rights to only those people who are substantially and adversely affected by a decision relating to a development application. Although this is consistent with Stein's recommendations, this is one part of Stein that we disagree with. The proposed changes to the Land Act will, in effect, mean that only adjoining neighbours will have any clear right to appeal. Everyone else will first have to convince the AAT that they are substantially and adversely affected. We can envisage a situation where the AAT hearings on planning appeals will be reduced to arguments about whether the appellant is substantially and adversely affected, rather than to the substance of their concerns.

A major concern of ours is: How does the environment get to be represented in an appeal? A group like the Conservation Council that may wish to raise the broader planning or environmental impacts of a development proposal via an appeal would be prevented from doing so because the individuals on the council would not be able to claim that they are personally affected by the development. They may, however, be raising quite legitimate concerns about a development that have not been picked up by other objectors. It is also the case that only about a third of the number of appeals lodged with the Land and Planning Appeals Board have been from third parties. So, it can hardly be said that the appeals system is being clogged up with third-party appeals.

MS McRAE (11.57): The Opposition will not be supporting these amendments. We supported the Stein inquiry, we supported the Stein recommendations in this regard, and we will not be supporting these amendments.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.57): Mr Speaker, I will not be supporting these amendments either. I am just amazed that, having been lashed before for not having been prepared to implement large swaths of Stein, we now learn that Ms Horodny is capable of picking and choosing - - -

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