Local Heritage Management Reform

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Local Government. Has the minister been briefed about the Local Heritage Discussion Paper, released by the government recently, and what is his position on the implications if the suggestions in that paper become legislation?

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned.

Mr Knoll: The deputy leader is correct.

The SPEAKER: I am sorry, the member for Schubert was seeking the call, was he?

Mr Knoll: The minister was still on his feet.

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned. Deputy Premier.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:49): The reason I am answering this question is because the issue of the heritage discussion paper is one which, on behalf of the government, I am managing. The heritage discussion paper is now presently in circulation. It is something that is out there to stimulate public conversation about the issue of local heritage—not state heritage, local heritage—and the important issues here arise largely through the work of the Hayes expert panel which, some time ago, as members might recall, did a very extensive report into our planning system.

That report recommended that, amongst other things, we should have a new planning act, which the parliament has now dealt with. It also suggested that we should look at reforming and modernising the question of heritage. It was the judgement of the government, at the time that we introduced the planning legislation, that to incorporate heritage into that already enormously complex bill would have been to simply make the bill so complex that we would find great difficulty in explaining the whole bill to all members of parliament and especially some in another place. So, we decided that we would do it in a two-step process. The first step would be to do the planning reform bill, which was—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: So, that's the background to it. We have now circulated this particular discussion paper. The discussion paper does not purport to be a statement of government policy: it purports to be what it is, which is a discussion paper. Today, I had the great privilege of speaking at a forum which was convened by the Lord Mayor in the Adelaide City Council chambers. This forum was attended by, if I am not mistaken, the member for Goyder. I saw his smiling face in the audience. I think we would have had 80 or 60 people or something of that nature there.

The good news is that, at the very beginning of this, the person who was the emcee for this event, as part of the warm-up, went through a galaxy of local government personalities, as they were reading out the list of people who were attending. There were mayors, there were councillors—

Ms Chapman: Even the Lord Mayor thinks it's a dud.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The Lord Mayor was there. It was like the who's who of local government there this morning. They were there, they were attentive and, indeed, I was invited very kindly to say a few words about the heritage paper. I explained to them, as I am explaining now to the parliament, that the paper is nothing more or less than a discussion paper. I even invited them to ask me a few questions, if they wished. There were a couple of questions asked, and I explained again that this was a discussion paper: it wasn't a policy document.

I explained that I was looking forward to hearing from them and, just to make it even more reasonable, I have extended the period because I was asked by the Lord Mayor to extend the period for consultation. I think, on something like this, you can't consult too much. I really believe that, particularly about heritage.

The Lord Mayor said to me, 'Why don't you extend the consultation period?' I said, 'Okay, we are extending the consultation period.' Now, we have extended the consultation period out to I think about the 14^th of next month, and I am expecting that the local government people will be spending a lot of time during that period talking to one another and will send in some really helpful suggestions.