Council Assessment Panels

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Planning. Following his answer to my question of 27 February regarding Council Assessment Panel decisions, are there any plans for councils and residents who are most greatly affected by approvals allowed under the planning act to be given more input into decisions that impact their local communities?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:42): I thank the member for Florey for her question. The answer is yes, and the answer is yes on a number of fronts. Decision-making processes within the planning system take two guises. One is around a policy plan change so, where we see at the moment changes to development plans using a development plan amendment, under the new PDI Act that will essentially be called a change to the design code.

On that front, this parliament saw fit to create a Community Engagement Charter, something that would give councils clear directions that they need to do more to engage local communities when it comes to policy changes about planning changes that could happen within their area. That is important because a lot of the time what happens is that members of the community get frustrated about the fact that individual planning applications are approved—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —and they are frustrated and unhappy with those decisions when those decisions are very much in accordance with what the plan says. They get frustrated because they would like to see a change to the policy framework in the first place, and the Community Engagement Charter provides them with an opportunity to get involved at that earlier stage and actually have a stake in what the plan says in the first place. When the individual applications come in and are assessed against that plan, they have had that input at that early stage and know what the plan actually says and allows.

On that front, the new PDI Act provides greater opportunity and a much more stringent framework regarding how councils, when seeking a change to the code, need to engage their communities. That charter also applies to the State Planning Commission when they seek to undertake statewide change under the new system. Essentially, everybody is bound by greater levels of consultation on policy change.

The second part, though, is in relation to individual applications. On individual applications, we have outlined now some regulations that determine assessment pathways and what projects get assessed under those different assessment pathways. But, in every instance, we are actually going to see an increase in the amount of consultation time allowed for people to have their say. In fact, for more simple applications it's about a 50 per cent increase, and then it's a doubling for more complex applications, off the top of my head, up to 20 business days, up from 10. We want to give more time in the time frame allowed for assessment for people to have their say. We think that's extremely important and something that as a government we were keen to implement.

The second thing we have done is to make sure that there is greater opportunity for people to have their say and be represented when matters, for instance, go to a Council Assessment Panel for decision. Up until now, it has been very strict about who can and can't be represented and speak their mind at a Council Assessment Panel or, indeed, at a SCAP meeting as well for state-assessed matters.

The new system provides the opportunity so that anybody who makes a submission can now be heard. We are also extending the group of people who can actually make submissions in the first place, and we are doing something very simple; that is, when you have somebody who puts a development application in, they have to stick a sign on the front of the property, and anybody who drives past and sees that sign can make a submission and then have their voice heard. That is very different in advance of what's happened previously.

What we have done is provided greater ability for people to have a say in the policy framework, and we encourage people to do it at that stage rather than the forlorn attempts that are made after the fact. We are also providing greater opportunity on individual development applications for people to make their voice heard.