Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

‘Efficiently’ is the word the Minister for Justice and Customs uses, and I noticed in the paper that the Sydney Airport Corporation chairman, Max Moore-Wilton, has said that the regulatory confusion associated with local and state government participation would paralyse the process and create uncertainty. Alternatively, it might actually lead to a better decision. I disagree with the view that every time a developer wants something expedited quickly any social, environmental or economic impacts become ‘red tape’, ‘green tape’, ‘paralysing processes’ and so on. The courts are there for a purpose. They are there to sort out what is just and unjust. People have rights of appeal, and so should they have.

This situation has been a windfall. At the time this Commonwealth land was made available for airports, the intention was that the land would provide buffer zones and provide for future planning in relation to aviation development. People were planning ahead for large areas of land for aviation development. The decision to see these areas as a commercial windfall, cut them off from aviation development, turn them into shopping malls, factory outlets, golf courses or brickworks—whatever the Commonwealth deems appropriate or a developer comes up with—and evade the local planning laws is a slap in the face for local communities, local governments and state governments. And there will be additional costs, especially because the minister currently does not have to take into account whether or not these developments are consistent with surrounding areas, the full impact of the developments on metropolitan centres around them or the full impact on infrastructure services—for example, of water and infrastructure services like roads and transport.

I am strongly of the view that the state premiers were right when they wrote to the Prime Minister and asked that control of non-aviation developments on airport land be restored to local and state planning laws. I note that the federal Labor Party is not supporting this contention—at least that is my understanding from what has been said here today—so perhaps the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, the Hon. Jim Lloyd, was right in arguing that if there were a change of government Labor would not be interested in giving back planning control to the states. I will be interested to see what the position of federal Labor is. I presume it is supporting the government in this and therefore not supporting these amendments.

It is a very poor planning process when the federal minister now does not have to engage a town planner to look at these other matters and the government does not require the release of social, environmental and economic impacts, and the communities that live around these areas will suffer accordingly. While I recognise that there will probably not be support for these amendments, either from the government or from the opposition, I think it is an indictment of proper process that this windfall arrangement has been taken out of the hands of the people who have to live with and suffer the consequences and the retail outlets. As I said before, I think Hobart is going to be very much worse off if this development proceeds. If and when it does, the people who are sitting here today supporting this legislation and refusing to support these amendments will have to take some responsibility for that.