House of Assembly Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2) 54 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Heritage Protection Heritage Protection Mrs POWER House of Assembly Elder Heritage Protection Mrs POWER (Elder) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Planning and Local Government. Can the minister update the house on the next steps the Marshall Liberal government is taking to ensure the preservation of South Australia's built heritage? The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN House of Assembly Bragg Deputy Premier Attorney-General Minister for Planning and Local Government Heritage Protection The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (14:58): I would be very pleased to answer this question and advise new information to the house. I thank the member for Elder for her strong advocacy and interest in heritage matters. She has, of course, the very famous Colonel Light Gardens in her electorate, which I think now for 100 years has been under a state heritage area, one of 17 in South Australia, as a garden suburb area, and very proud of it she is. Shortly, there will be updated heritage standards that will come into effect, which is a statutory instrument under our new Planning and Design Code. But today I just want to tell you about a matter that the Minister for Environment and Water and I are very proud of, and that is to confirm to the house that a new group will be appointed to respond to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee's inquiry into heritage reform in South Australia. We finished the Planning and Design Code phase 3. That is all locked and loaded and off it is going, and we are very pleased about that, and now the minister and I have agreed to a critically important group of people to ensure that the heritage places, areas and buildings that are affected are afforded the protection they deserve and that there is more consistent guidance as to how our heritage is identified. It is fair to say that the ERD Committee's ambition, in their consideration of this matter, was to ensure that our heritage protection is both transparent and streamlined, and furthermore that it be as responsive and accountable as possible. We have agreed that the report, which was tabled on 30 April 2019, will be considered and that the membership of a panel will comprise qualified representatives from the State Planning Commission, the SA Heritage Council, the National Trust of South Australia and the state government. The members invited to be on the panel who have accepted are Ms Helen Dyer, the Chair of the State Planning Commission, who will chair the panel; Ms Deborah Morgan, President of the National Trust of South Australia; Mr Keith Conlon, Chair of the South Australian Heritage Council; Mr Jason Schulz, an architect from DASH Architects and a member of the South Australian Heritage Council; Ms Cate Hart, Executive Director of Environment, Heritage and Sustainability from the minister's department; and Ms Anita Allen, Director of Planning and Development in my department. Importantly, we think the invitation to participate in this needed to consider recognition of the important roles they play in heritage preservation and their advocacy, together with a detailed understanding of the current heritage system, their local government experience and their understanding of the new planning system and how it pertains to heritage. I can particularly say that Ms Anita Allen, who is a director in planning and development in my own department, has been very much in a leadership role in rolling out the new planning and development code. She is very familiar with the operation of this, and I have valued her advice with all stakeholders as we have developed that new code. We are very grateful for the commitment of the members to assist the government to reform the current approach to the preservation and management of heritage so that we can address all the frustrations and shortcomings we see in the current approach. It has been raised by the ERD Committee, and there were many, many submissions that went to that inquiry, and we thank those who made a contribution. The terms of reference for this panel are (1) to consider those recommendations and report— The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Order! The minister's time has expired.