Page 1905 - Week 07 - Thursday, 23 August 2007
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• exemptions for bumper stickers and Legislative Assembly publications from the authorisation requirements; and
• for privacy reasons, removing the requirement to publish the residential address of a party’s registered officer and replacing it with the option to publish a residential address, a business address or an address of the party.
The bill also makes arrange of other relatively minor changes that are spelt out in the explanatory statement for the bill.
This bill will further refine the ACT’s electoral system to ensure that the ACT maintains its record of best practice in the conduct of its elections. The bill will also work to strengthen the basic principles of elections in the ACT so that they remain free, fair and transparent.
I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Stefaniak) adjourned to the next sitting.
Variation to territory plan No 259
Motion for disallowance
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (10.38): I move:
That this Assembly, in accordance with subsection 29 (4) of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991, rejects Variation No 259 to the Territory Plan—Woden Town Centre: Commercial B—Changes to Precincts, Entertainment Accommodation and Leisure and Restricted Access Recreation Land Use Policies and All Town Centres—Changes to Appendix II and Commercial B Precinct “c”.
This motion brings up many of the issues that have led the Greens, amongst others, to argue that the whole planning reform project and this government’s emphatic shift away from community engagement on planning matters are misdirected. I remind the Assembly that the main reason I moved this disallowance motion is that the final variation, which was presented to the Assembly in our last sitting week, is significantly different from the draft variation over which there was considerable—and, I would have thought, relatively adequate—consultation. The final variation that hit the community, particularly the community that sees Woden as its centre, came as a big shock. It was not what people expected. It was not what people had put considerable time and effort into as part of the planning and environment committee process and all the other processes that used to be part of the system and that we are going to lose with the new reform legislation.
Let me expand. This government and its agency ACTPLA have abandoned all external guidance on making variations to the territory plan. After local area planning committees were shut down, no attempt was made to put the government’s promised community planning forums into place. The planning and land council was abolished, probably because it did not always agree with government—not that that is what we
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