Page 5071 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 26 October 2010
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could turn on whether the letters were received and whether they were sent to the most up-to-date address held by ACTPLA. Debate and assessment might be required if the relevant lessee has change their address without notifying the relevant authorities. Debates might be had as to which properties are adjoining properties. I do not believe that these complexities are best addressed by entrenching them in a new legal process with real potential to divert considerable time and resources for, frankly, minimal gain.
The best approach in this area is one of practical improvement to the relevant administrative processes. ACTPLA has refined its processes for sending out letters to the relevant lessees. Currently ACTPLA sends out letters to the street address of the neighbouring property. In addition, if ACTPLA has on its database a lessee contact address different to this street address, a letter is also sent to this alternate address. So, in many cases, not one but two or more letters are sent out to two or more contact points.
This letter notification process has been further strengthened in recent times with the cooperation of the office of the Commissioner for ACT Revenue. The office of the commissioner for revenue has, as members would be aware, a database of lessee contact details for the administration of the property rate system. This database is able to be kept up to date as a result of ongoing contacts with lessees in relation to the collection of their property rates. In recent months ACTPLA has worked with the commissioner’s office on ways for it to utilise the database of lessee contact details held and kept up to date by the commissioner’s office. Importantly, the use of this information by ACTPLA is restricted to lessee name and contact details and does not in any way involve access to taxation records or other information held by the commissioner.
This work has progressed to a point where ACTPLA is now in the process of updating its own database of contacts with information from the commissioner’s office. I am informed that public notification letters have already been sent out using this updated information. It is anticipated that the use of the commissioner’s database in this way will be fully operational in the next few months. This process for the augmentation of ACTPLA’s own address database is made possible by section 395B of the act. Section 395B is a relatively new provision added by the Planning and Development Act 2010 in February this year.
I would like to thank members again for their support of this amendment which has now proven instrumental in delivering significant improvements to public administration. I also thank the Commissioner for ACT Revenue and officers for their cooperation and assistance in this area. In the government’s view, the best course of action with regard to notification is to complete these administrative reforms and assess their effectiveness before resorting to new legislation.
These are not the only improvements made to administrative processes around public notification. As I have indicated previously, an error in the public notification of a Latham development application was raised in the debate on the Greens’ earlier bill. Since that error came to light, ACTPLA has revised monitoring processes to ensure that notification errors are eliminated as far as possible.
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