Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to stand and discuss this report with the House today. In doing so I note the comments already made by the member for Page. Yes, it is true that the committee’s recommendation was for disallowance, but it was basically recommending that the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads move that disallowance. I just want to make a couple of things clear on the record here in relation to this report. The committee generally supports the broad aims of the Griffin Legacy project, a product of both the ACT Planning and Land Authority and the National Capital Authority. However, to us on the committee, process is a very important part of the work of this parliament and of our committee. The committee feels very strongly that process may have not been adhered to in quite the way that we would have imagined.

In November last year, the minister for territories wrote to the committee, as he would normally do, advising that the consultation process had been finalised and seeking advice from the committee on whether it would wish to inquire into the draft amendments that we are speaking about. That happens each time there are significant—in fact, any—draft amendments that come within the ambit of the committee. The committee wrote back on 30 November, four days later, advising that it did in fact wish to conduct an inquiry into the draft amendments. However, on 6 December, the amendments were tabled in both houses of parliament, subject to a disallowance period which the NCA advised would expire on 29 March—that is, this week.

The committee feel very strongly that yet again we are seeing an example where the work of the committee is being circumvented. As the committee report says:

The decision by the Minister, on the advice of the NCA, to table the amendments prior to the committee commencing its own inquiry is a break with convention.

The minister has in the past waited for advice from the committee, on most occasions, as to whether it wishes to undertake an inquiry into draft amendments, but in this case that was not able to be done. I feel very strongly that these conventions are there; they are important and, for the committee to do its work properly, they should be followed.

Due to the process, the committee have now managed, despite that outcome, to hold a roundtable conference here in one day, on 23 February, in our attempt to get across the issues. These amendments—amendments 56, 59, 60 and 61—are probably the most enormous amendments in terms of impact on Canberra that we have seen for decades and decades. They are very substantial. While we, as I said, agree in general with the thrust of these amendments, that does not mean that we should not have the ability to look more closely at what exactly the impacts may be and whether or not those amendments can be improved in some way; hence, our reasons for wishing to have had that inquiry. Instead, we had the roundtable—a very successful roundtable where a number of people from the community, both individually and from appropriate institutions and businesses, came together and discussed very broadly the impacts of these amendments.

There is one particular aspect I would like to draw attention to in the brief time I have—that is, a comment regarding the dual planning process we have here in Canberra, where we have the National Capital Authority on the one hand and the ACT planning authority on the other. We had the example brought to the committee’s attention in that roundtable of an independent businessman, a small business man, who has purchased a business on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin—in fact, it is Mr Spokes Bike Hire, which many of us know about. He has paid money for that. He moved into that business only late last year, to now find that it is right in the middle of potentially huge planning changes to West Basin, under amendment 61. The issue became apparent in our roundtable that day: on the one hand, the NCA are drawing up proposals under amendment 61 which could have a massive impact on that businessman, but, on the other hand, he is sitting on a piece of land which is territory land, which is for all planning purposes governed by the ACT planning authority. This is an issue that I hope to bring further to the attention of the House when I have more time, because it is an important issue that needs to be discussed.

I want to thank all of those people who participated in the roundtable, and I also want to thank the committee secretariat. As I said, the roundtable was on 23 February, and here we are with a very well-written and researched report put forward by the committee. I want to thank the secretariat and my colleagues on the committee for the very quick but very proficient work that was done in attempting to draw some of the conclusions together in relation to four very large amendments affecting Canberra into the future. (Time expired)

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