Question Time

PLANNING SA

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about resourcing of Planning SA.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: As the minister would be aware, the LGA recently held its annual general meeting. That gave me the opportunity to speak with a number of local government stakeholders right across South Australia, and I noted that there seems to be increasing frustration within local government in terms of development plan amendments processed through Planning SA—in particular, the Better Development Plan process. In one case a council was promised that theirs would be ready two months (I think) prior to the LGA AGM, but I have since been advised that it will not be ready now until at least August.

That seems strange in these unprecedented economic times, given the willingness of governments of all persuasions to stimulate the economy and local communities all over South Australia battling to stay ahead of the economic gloom, as well as the fact that we have 17,000 more public servants today than we had when this government was elected. Can the minister explain why these delays are growing in both length and frequency?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (14:23): That question makes a number of assumptions—including the assumption that DPAs have been growing in both length and frequency—but the honourable member does not produce any evidence, other than an anecdotal story of an unnamed council in relation to one project.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Go out and talk to them yourself.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I talk to them all the time. There are lots of reasons for development plans taking longer than expected, and a lot of them are outside the control of the Department of Planning and Local Government. In fact, in many cases councils themselves submit development plans that are not up to scratch, and they have to be referred back—

An honourable member: So it's the councils' fault.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: In many cases it may well be; there are all sorts of reasons. The honourable member is suggesting that a government should just approve a development plan amendment without ensuring that it is consistent with the state planning strategy, and so on; but that would be a silly thing to do.

Since this government has been in office, and certainly in the time that I have been the minister, we have made great efforts to ensure that the handling time for development plan amendments has been minimised. Against that, of course, we are also going through a very large number of very important development plan amendments to try to facilitate the growth of this state, as well as the changes that we have made to the residential development code to try to speed up the planning system by taking out of the system the need for planning approval for straightforward, uncomplicated and uncontroversial developments—a very important step.

Of course, in the past few years we have introduced independent development assessment panels, and the whole purpose of that reform, along with the Residential Code, was to try to make councils concentrate more on the more complicated planning decisions. That is the whole purpose of those reforms, and I believe that is working, and it is one of the reasons why councils are now putting more effort into their development plans: because they realise that is the area where councils should have their input.

So, the system is working. The point is that the planning reforms of this government are working and councils are now able to deal much more swiftly with straightforward applications and focus their energies on getting their development plans right, which is what the government has been asking them to do for some years. That is happening and, as I said, I do not accept the premise or the assumption contained within the honourable member's questions. In fact, we have been making great strides towards improving the speediness of planning approvals within the state.