Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to add some comments to the tabling of this report of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories titled Review of the Griffin Legacy amendments. As deputy chair of that committee, I note Senator Lightfoot’s comments as chair.

This committee has had a longstanding frustration with the conduct of the National Capital Authority, particularly with its performance in the area of consultation. So it was with some disappointment that, despite what appears to have been very lengthy consultation with—and indeed concurrence of, in this case—the ACT planning authorities and the across-the-board bipartisan support of the Griffin Legacy amendments, so many concerns were raised at the round table forum held by the committee for the purposes of looking at the implications of the Griffin Legacy amendments.

For the record, as Senator Lightfoot said, we are talking about amendments 56, 59, 60 and 61. Despite acknowledging that there is general support for these amendments within the ACT government—and certainly by the majority, for all intents and purposes, of submitters in the NCA consultation process and by the coalition government itself—there are problems. The committee feels strongly enough about them to recommend to the minister that, as the minister, he consider moving disallowance of these amendments. The committee has recommended it in that form. I am certainly of the view, and the committee is of the view, that these amendments do not warrant tossing out, because that general support is there, but they do warrant refining. There are a number of areas, which I will not go through again, and which Senator Lightfoot has outlined, where improvements could be made. 

I would like to place a couple of points on the record about my concerns. They relate very specifically to parking and transport issues. The people of Canberra and the region who live and work around the central part of this city have been suffering for quite some time with parking issues. The NCA is responsible for this side of the lake in particular. But with increased development in Civic and the surrounding precinct, parking has become more and more difficult. It is not enough to make the assumption that people will make the choice to move to public transport in the absence of parking. The people of Canberra deserve better planning in relation to that. That includes issues like this—the Griffin Legacy—which does outline a plan for the next 25 years of development to take into account that amenity that I think everybody deserves with respect to transport. That was a particular concern that came out.

The other area of concern is the overall approach and level of detail in these amendments. It is a very particular challenge to draft amendments which set such long-term parameters. It is not about specific sites. It is about the general context and nature of future development. So in that sense these amendments are critically important to the ACT’s economy and to the nation’s capital. They do set the parameters for long-term development. We know that some of the models put forward to us are not all going to happen at once, but they will happen over time, and that is why we believe extra care ought to have been taken in the drafting of these amendments.

Going back to consultation, one particular weakness the committee found was the wide variety of views at our roundtable. We also acknowledge that many of the submissions that were identified by the National Capital Authority as being favourable to this were in fact not more than one-line submissions. There were a number in the pack of that 70 per cent which showed just single-line comments with no name and no attribution to them, collected through, I presume, the Griffin Legacy display which has been down at Regatta Point for quite a long time now.

We have made a recommendation in relation to consultation which is, sadly, a predictable thing for this committee to do in relation to the National Capital Authority, and that is that they explore improved ways in which to consult with the public. This is a bit of a broken record for this committee. One of the concerns expressed at the roundtable was that the feedback and the publishing of those submissions was a very poor process on the part of the NCA. What in fact happened in providing feedback was that the comments that were noted and responded to were not sourced, so submitters had no way of knowing if the committee was specifically responding to their concerns or to a general concern, or whether their concern was shared by everybody else.

So our second recommendation relates specifically to the National Capital Authority exploring options for ensuring submissions to all of the authority’s consultation processes are made publicly available, subject to full approval by the submitter and compliance with privacy principles. All they need to do is say, ‘Are you happy for your submission to be published?’ We were not convinced as a committee that the lengths to which the NCA went to to not identify submitters were appropriate—they just added confusion and I think promoted distrust amongst the community who made those submissions that the process was being handled adequately. I am confident the NCA will take this suggestion at face value and work again to improve their consultation processes.

Finally, what to do about it? I am certainly very strongly of the view that this place is not a place to arbitrate on ACT planning matters. It is of no help to the ACT economy nor indeed is it in the interests of the people of the ACT to have the Senate arbitrate on specific planning matters. That is why we as a committee have asked the minister to move disallowance in these amendments. If the minister moves disallowance then I believe that the Senate will respect his will. The reason we have suggested that disallowance is the way to go is that there is no other way to change these amendments. Because the amendments had already been tabled in parliament, they cannot be amended. What is unfortunate is that we were not able to provide this feedback to the minister prior to the amendments being tabled, which would have allowed the NCA and the minister to perhaps make those amendments if the minister was of the mind to take our advice, because we are an advisory committee only.