South Australian Integrated Land Information System

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:33): I rise to speak about the South Australian Integrated Land Information System, otherwise known as SAILIS. The South Australian Integrated Land Information System, initially called the common property file, was set up in 1968 following a move by the government to computerise and integrate their information with regard to land and property. The system was established to avoid duplication between the engineering and water supply department, the valuations department and land tax department when files needed to be updated with information from the Lands Titles Office. This information concerned changes in ownership and the subdivision of properties.

The initial idea of establishing an integrated system began in 1960, following the establishment of the Ligertwood inquiry into land tax, water, sewerage and council rates. The SA government purchased several mainframe computers to computerise these and other government systems from 1964 through to 1970. It was not until 1974 that a system was finally complete to fully integrated information from the title records from the Registrar-General and enabled an online enquiry system to land information.

When the Public Service Board initiated the investigation into an integrated system in 1965, they consulted with the engineering and water supply department (now SA Water), the land tax department (now RevenueSA), the agriculture department (now Primary Industries and Regions SA), the state planning authority (now a division of planning in DPTI), the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and local government. The master file was structured with individual property records within local government areas and data collection units and contained the following information:

the owner's name and address;

an ownership number which was to be used for aggregation of land within one ownership for land tax revenue collection purposes;

sale price and date of sale;

location of the property (including house number, street name and suburb or lot, section and hundred);

certificate of title number or numbers;

Lands Titles Office plan number;

lot number and section number;

capital value of each property;

site value of each allotment;

area of land;

nature of improvements (that is, house, factory, shopping centre, etc.);

a land use code, which is the actual way the land is used (in other words, residential, industrial, commercial, vacant, rural, public institution, etc.);

current permitted use of the land (that is, zoning); and

current building or demolition approvals from councils.

This then became known as the South Australian Integrated Land Information System and is currently updated daily online and generally in real time.

In the mid-1980s, the cadastral records of the mapping branch in the lands department were converted to digital form and called the digital cadastral database, thus allowing mapping of locations within the state, incorporating such data as land use data, etc. Some examples of applications using the land information system are as follows. SAILIS allowed the state planning authority to determine how many vacant residentially zoned allotments there were within any area of the state. They could also produce maps which indicated whether, even though the land was improved, that land may be suitable for redevelopment. This is usually based on the fact that the land value is equal to the improved value of the property.

The land commission, which was established in 1974, used this information to identify land in broadacre form that could be made available for subdivision and the number of vacant residentially zoned allotments in any area, so that if there was a shortfall, action could be taken to provide a solution to the shortfall. The department of agriculture were able to use the system to quickly identify primary production properties in the case of an outbreak of exotic disease in stock.

For example, if a disease was detected that affected sheep, the department could use SAILIS to identify which properties carried sheep in that location and could contact owners to contain the spread of the disease. In addition, they could identify all land that could be used for quarantine purposes. The valuation department could identify all properties that had been sold and were comparable to those to be valued for any particular purpose. The property price indices that are published in The Advertiser and Sunday Mail initially come from SAILIS.

Although technology has changed significantly since 1970, the SA Integrated Land Information System is still recognised as a world leader in its field and provides huge benefits to South Australia. For example, now that the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Bill has passed, the SAILIS system could be considered as a vehicle for the e-planning system for the state. It also has the potential to quickly identify the 15 years' land supply, as required by current government policy.