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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2621 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Ms Tucker said when she presented her bill that she is aware of the delays that the amendments may cause, and that she is also aware of the uncertainty they may cause. She said:

The creation of this uncertainty is actually the intention of the bill, as it will put pressure on the government to use the call-in powers only where justification is clear and accepted by all sides of the Assembly, or at least the majority.

In other words, Mr Speaker, the power will be so difficult to exercise that only a desperate minister would resort to a call in. Unfortunately, only the most genuine call-in cases would be affected. What happened to all those previous speeches about clarity and certainty in the development system? Then again, what happened to the vote of the Assembly when it decided to pass Mr Corbell's amendments to the call-in provisions in 1999? In fact, the government supported those amendments because it was a reasonable initiative and because the change, with the government's amendment, brought the ACT provisions closer to call-in provisions in other jurisdictions.

But it is not enough that Ms Tucker is prepared to resort to destabilising the development system in order to have her way, or that she refuses to accept the vote of the Assembly, even on amendments to a bill moved by the Labor opposition. She went on in her presentation to say:

Conversely, if the government wants to push through a controversial proposal, it must be prepared to face a vote in the Assembly about the appropriateness of this action.

There seems to be some confusion about what the proper role of the Assembly is in these cases. I am quite happy to debate at any time in this Assembly the appropriateness of a decision to call in an application. That is the point of notifying the decision to the Assembly. What the government cannot accept, however, is the view that the use of the power of any minister might become the subject of a debate as to whether a decision to use that power will stand, and anything could become subject to veto by the vote of the Assembly. When this happens, ministerial discretion ceases to exist and, in fact, the minister has less power than the Commissioner for Land and Planning-or is Ms Tucker suggesting that he, too, should send his decisions to the Assembly for a vote of approval?

Mr Speaker, so far there have been 20 call-in decisions since June 1997, when the power was introduced. That is about five a year. There are about 4,500 to 5,500 development applications processed each year. That means that about 0.1 per cent of applications are called in. Yes, those are the more sensitive or often controversial ones. The whole point of having a call-in power is to recognise that there are always going to be controversial matters or matters of great public or policy interest that a minister, as the person holding the power of determination, will choose to make a personal decision on.

In 1999, the government acknowledged that Mr Corbell's amendments added certainty and clarity to the call-in process, and supported them. This bill removes all of that certainty, and the most unacceptable thing about it is that it does so quite intentionally.

Mr Speaker, if Ms Tucker is concerned about the extent of my use of the call-in power, let us talk about that. One of the roles of this Assembly is to do just that. The proper role of the Assembly is to debate and determine issues of policy and to pass laws to give

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