Page 4723 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 13 December 2005
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are amendments that are worthy of note. The explanatory notes, which are fairly clear and are helpful to anyone reading the bill, indicate why some minor amendments have been made.
I wish to refer to a couple of amendments that are worthy of note and that have been accepted by the opposition and by those who will be affected by them. Schedule 1 refers to amendments to the Land (Planning and Environment) Act. Those amendments will remove the anomaly relating to when an approval to conduct a development becomes effective if an objection has been made to the application for approval. Under the current act that approval takes effect before the conclusion of the period that is permitted for the making of an application to the AAT for a review of the approval decision.
However, in practice, that can cause some problems. The date on which the approval takes effect and the application period for an AAT review can commence on different days if objectors or third parties are not notified of the decision on the day that it is made. Some time ago these two processes somehow got out of kilter. The AAT picked it up and these amendments have been proposed to bring the processes back into line and to ensure that an appeal is made to the AAT before the approval takes effect.
Representatives of the Master Builders Association said to me that if the appeal notification occurred later someone might have dug a hole, commenced a development and incurred expenses and that development would then have to be stopped. It is far better if the appeals process occurs concurrently. In that way, if there were an appeal, the relevant parties would be notified and developments would not be put on hold until such time as an appeal had been dealt with. That would save everyone a lot of bother. Industry in particular welcomes the amendment, which will correct an anomaly.
The bill makes a few other minor amendments such as facilitating the transfer of administrative responsibility for ACT NoWaste to the Minister for Urban Services. In practice, under the act it has had responsibility for these matters. These amendments will simply formalise that operation. All in all, these appear to me to be pretty sensible amendments. This bill will repeal a number of acts that have been superseded by other legislation. The opposition supports this tidying up bill, which will do a number of quite good things, in particular, in relation to the AAT. It has the potential of saving industry groups much cost and trouble.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.08): The explanatory statement to this bill states that these amendments are minor and non-controversial. As that appears to be correct I am happy to support the bill. I wish to make one comment about the proposed amendment to part 1.6. If and when the National Transport Commission introduces new standards for securing loads I urge the ACT government to ensure that trucking companies, people who work in the haulage industry and members of the general public who cart loads to the tip know what is expected of them.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs) (11.09), in reply: I thank members for their contribution to debate on, and their support for, this bill. This bill, which makes minor legislative changes, continues the technical amendments program that will develop a simpler, more coherent and accessible statute book for the territory.
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