Page 4573 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 19 October 2010
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It is worth just briefly reflecting on the other issue that I think is part of the subtext of this—that is, the lack of leadership and coordination in planning in the territory. There is no doubt that you have got a planning minister who has responsibility for some things and is not that interested in planning. And then you have got a chief minister who is responsible for other parts of planning and development through Land and Property Services and through the Land Development Agency. And we know he is not very interested. He is not interested in even being here.
We have got two uninterested ministers, unfortunately. We cannot fix that but I think that one step forward would be to have one minister who oversights all of these issues. Planning and development should come under the auspices of one minister. That would be an important step in the right direction. The government should take the opportunity of the Hawke review to make some reasonable changes that will assist.
That in and of itself will not fix it. Changing the structure of ACTPLA will not fix it but will improve it. It will improve it because we have a lot of double-up at the moment. There is a lot of double-up both in the ministers and in the agencies. We used to have a major projects unit which was designed to coordinate a lot of these issues. Then we had the Department of Land and Property Services that was established to coordinate these issues. And then they said that was not working, so they would appoint someone within Land and Property Services to be the coordinator on behalf of the department for all of these issues. It is ad hoc in its approach.
I would put it on the record that we believe that it is important that we see reforms in this area. This is one aspect but, when we have got a lack of leadership in planning, when we have got a lack of coordination, that leads to things being missed. That leads to there not being the kind of oversight that we would expect. That is clearly what has happened here. That has happened here and we believe that does need to be looked into properly rather than the whitewash of the government looking into itself.
We look forward to engaging further on possible changes to come out of this but I would say to the government that it is time to take our lead and make some reforms in this area rather than just bumbling along from one stuff-up to the next in the area of planning.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Standing and temporary orders—suspension
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.34): I move:
That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No 2, Private Members’ business, relating to the Climate Change (Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets) Bill 2008 (No 2), being called on and debated cognately with order of the day No 1, Executive business, relating to the Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Bill 2010.
This is a process that we use fairly commonly in the Assembly. We did it with the freedom of information bill; we did it with random roadside drug testing legislation.
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