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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4173 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

The new clause 15A which the Canberra Liberals propose requires that the authority must appear before the relevant committee of the Legislative Assembly to report on its activities at least once every six months. This amendment comes directly from the recommendations of the Planning and Environment Committee report, which says at 4.14:

The Committee recommends that the relationship between the authority and the Assembly be formalised by requiring the authority to report on its activities to the appropriate Assembly Committee at least once every 6 months.

The functions of the Planning and Land Authority are vast, ranging from long-term strategic planning for the ACT through to the administration of planning and land development and the maintenance of information databases. In many ways, it is the court of first appeal in many functions relating to planning.

It is the view of the Planning and Environment Committee that these functions should be closely scrutinised by the Legislative Assembly.

The standing committee which has responsibility for that in the present Assembly is the Planning and Environment Committee-not because we like the work, Mr Speaker, but because we are highly aware of the importance placed on planning by the people of the ACT.

This proposal is not without precedent. In the federal parliament, many major authorities are required to appear before their relevant committee on a six-monthly basis, as was the case with the former National Crime Authority, APRA and ASIC, to name a few.

In the spirit of transparency, the spirit of being accountable and providing an educative process-which we have already talked about in clause 8-and a community consultation process, it is appropriate that the community knows what is going on in the organisation. The authority should be able to answer questions on a regular basis before the appropriate planning committee, and the appropriate planning committee should have the capacity to investigate or interrogate on what is going on at any time.

I know the minister is not enamoured of this idea, and that the government response to the Planning and Environment Committee report has already ruled this out on the grounds that "there is already an annual report and anything else would be onerous and unnecessary".

In many ways, this is the most important piece of legislation administered by this Assembly. This is in fact the piece of legislation-and the accompanying piece of legislation that underpins it-that impacts most on the people of the ACT. It creates most ink for the Canberra Times, and it creates most angst for the people in this place and for people in the community. Although it might be a departure for this place, it is certainly not unprecedented.

It is fitting, especially in the teething stages, when this organisation is setting itself up, that it be subject to close scrutiny by the community. The best way to do that is through the operation of the appropriate committee. The Planning and Environment Committee in this Assembly operates very well and churns through the work. As members will notice, we have tabled our eleventh report today.

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