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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-17 Daily Xml
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CHARACTER PRESERVATION (BAROSSA VALLEY) BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendments.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I just want to say a few words about this at the outset. I know other members want to speak and that is good. This is one of two very important pieces of legislation which have been through the parliament. I think there are a number of members who would want to speak on this. I know the member for Mawson had a special interest in the one yesterday, but I think he has got something to say about this one as well.

What I intended to do, if it is alright with the parliament, is say a few words in general terms about it, and then I am not going to be too structured about the formal committee stuff, on the undertaking that, when everyone has had their good go, we do not then have a big blowout again every time we go through each amendment.

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. M.J. Wright): I am sure the shadow minister will comply with your wishes, and I will give her the same opportunity that I am now offering to you.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Thank you, I am grateful. I hope she does not get stuck into me again on this one, but anyway, we will see.

The situation is that we had two bills: the Barossa and the McLaren Vale bills. Yesterday, we dealt with the McLaren Vale bill and, obviously, a lot that has been said about the McLaren Vale bill can be equally said of the Barossa Valley bill because the motivation, in both cases, was the protection of agricultural land, the termination of endless sprawl for the city of Adelaide and to provide some confidence in those parts of South Australia, which are so very important from a whole range of points of view—not just from an economic point of view but also from a cultural, historic and almost definitional point of view—that they will be protected from the scourge of urban sprawl.

Again, the legislation in respect of the Barossa Valley is intended to provide one substantial effect and one alone; that is, that those areas within that protection zone, excluding the townships, cannot be subdivided further for residential subdivision purposes. I have to say that the Barossa did present in practice a more complex issue than McLaren Vale because (a) it is a bigger area and (b) there is a more interesting and diverse land use pattern in the Barossa than exists in McLaren Vale.

In particular, members might be familiar with the Cockatoo Valley area where there has already been some degree of—I am trying to find a neutral term but I am struggling—what I will call hobby farming-type subdivision that has occurred. It was very evident to me that, if we did not do something very soon in the Barossa Valley, what would happen is that that would become, in effect, the flashpoint for an explosion of subdivision applications which would then have completely changed the whole character of the Barossa Valley.

So, in some respects, the issue for the Barossa Valley was different from the issue for McLaren Vale because McLaren Vale was being threatened from its immediate boundaries. If we did not do what we were seeking to do in McLaren Vale, there could be incursions into McLaren Vale from the immediate north which would have had direct and significant impacts on McLaren Vale. In the case of the Barossa Valley, although there was some threat from longer term expansion of Gawler, the real flashpoint for the Barossa Valley, I always thought, was Cockatoo Valley, which would be an internal explosion rather than an external intrusion.

There were lengthy consultations about this legislation. I want to thank a number of people who were involved. Again, I want to mention the member for Mawson who, although he does not live in that area, has taken an interest and been of great support to people there. I would like to also mention people who are from the area who invited me up there to talk to them about their issues, and this goes back some time ago.

I would like in particular to mention people like Margaret Lehman, Jan Angas, Maggie Beer and people who were extremely hospitable to me and impressed me with their passion about the area in which they live, their determination to retain the character and the special atmosphere that attaches to that area, and their legitimate fears that that could be totally devastated by unregulated urban sprawl. In naming them, I do not wish to say they were the only ones, because there were many others I met with, but they were very, very passionate people about this project.

As with the McLaren Vale legislation, the initial legislation was a far more sophisticated beast than the one we are dealing with now. My personal preference is that I like the earlier version, but the fact is that we have consulted on this. The consultation has resulted in my attempting to accommodate as many legitimate interests as I possibly can whilst maintaining the same core objective, which is to protect this area from subdivision. Over time, the legislation has become a more streamlined document and, I believe, if passed will do a great service to the people of the Barossa Valley.

As with McLaren Vale, the interim DPA which accompanied the original introduction of legislation did cause some consternation. It is unfortunate that the interim DPA became confused, in the minds of some, with the legislation because they are two completely separate things. The operation of the interim DPA did create some complexities which we then did our best to resolve, and I think we have resolved them by and large.

However, in retrospect, if I had my time again I think I would have perhaps been more nimble with the drafting of the interim DPA, but you learn as you go along. It served its purpose, but it was a blunter instrument than I intended it to be, let me just put it that way. Anyway, it does not matter; we have sorted that out. The problem is that, unfortunately, the debate got sidetracked into a debate about the interim DPA instead of a debate about the primary bill. That was unfortunate, but nevertheless we more or less got through that.

Barossa did present some other particular issues for me in that the Barossa Council is a very unique organisation, in my experience. They, in my experience, are able to hold several views, none of them consistent, some of them diametrically opposed, over this course of a relatively short space of time; so it is difficult to keep up with them. Much of the difficulty we have had is that it has been difficult to isolate what their real issues are and nail them down because, every time you reckon you have got there you go off and make a cup of tea and you come back, there are new issues on the table and the old issues are not relevant any more. Anyway, that is part of the excitement of the process, and we have got past that now.

I think by and large, in all seriousness, Barossa Council was trying to do good works, but the way they went about it made it more difficult for them and for us, as the people trying to put the legislation together and explain things to everybody; it made it more difficult for everybody. I contrast that with Onkaparinga council, where their position was crystal clear from day one. There was never a need for us to go back and reinvent the wheel with them. They were always on board. They were always clear. They were always extremely reliable people with whom to negotiate because if they said 'Black is black' it remained black for the whole time. If they said 'White is white' it remained white for the whole time.

I only go into that to try to emphasise that some of the complexity about this DPA, and the length of time it has taken to get this through, has resulted from a number of issues. As I said, I accept responsibility for the fact that the initial document turned out to be a cruder instrument than it should ideally have been, and that is my fault. But, thereafter, things were not assisted by shifting sands, let me put it that way.

Mr Venning: I think your officers set you up a bit.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, it is funny because the same officers were dealing with Onkaparinga and I did not have any of those problems, so there is only one variable there; it is the same me, it is the same DPA, my office is the same, the only variable is which council we are dealing with, and I only had a problem with one. So let us just leave it there.

We get to the point where we now have this provision here. It does not take away from the Barossa Council's capacity to regulate land use in the region other than it stops them and me and my successors from turning that into residential real estate without the parliament agreeing to it. That is all it does. Within the townships they continue to be able to do what they could always do and, as I said yesterday, it is my intention that once this has settled down—this legislation has been hopefully passed—the land management regime in the Barossa will return to where it was prior to the initial interim DPA, so it will be as if nothing has happened, except that there will be no possibility of subdivision for residential purposes. That is the only change, otherwise it will be exactly the same as it was. Of course, the legislation does contemplate a review at some stage in the future, and that would obviously be conducted with the council and everybody else, so they are completely on board.

I can foreshadow that, as with the McLaren Vale legislation, there is one issue that I am not happy with in the version that has come back to this place, and that is the issue about creating this rather peculiar anomaly for the townships which is as a result of an amendment moved by the Hon. Mark Parnell in the other place. He moved it for both bills, so I am not saying now anything I did not say yesterday, really, but I do not support that amendment because it creates—

Mr Venning: That's for McLaren Vale not the Barossa.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It is in the Barossa one as well. If it is not, everything I am about to say is completely irrelevant.

Mr Venning: I think you are right.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: My notes say it is in both. It is clause 6A. What I want to say to all the members who are present today, and I am happy, obviously, for this to appear on the official record, is that the Hon. Mark Parnell has raised systemic issues in the Development Act. He has raised issues of statewide application about which he has very strong feelings, and Mr Parnell, amongst other things, does know something about environmental law and does know something about planning law, so I do not take his remarks lightly in terms of his concerns. That does not mean I am going to agree with every single proposition he puts up, but I do think he is worth listening to. What concerns me about his amendments is that he is sort of creating a little test tube where he tests out one of his ideas, but he is testing it out on real people in real townships.

Ms Chapman: You do that everyday in government.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: What an outrageous thing to say. He is testing out what might be a good idea—I do not know, I am not commenting on the merit of the idea—on these townships. I think he virtually said in his remarks that ideally he would like to see a change across the state. From my personal point of view, I would prefer that, if there were going to be change in the area Mr Parnell is concerned about, it should be across the board so that we have a system which everyone understands and which is not replete with anomalies.

My invitation to Mr Parnell and to the opposition is that I am happy, any time, to sit down and talk about Development Act issues. I can indicate that there will probably be a number of occasions in the next few months when minor matters will be considered under the Development Act, but I recognise that there is a period of time after which major pieces of legislation like the Development Act deserve to be at least looked at in a holistic fashion, not just looked at by picking a section out here and there and so forth.

I issue the invitation now to other members here and to Mr Parnell that I would be quite happy, informally, to start having conversations about how we can usefully advance that conversation, with a view to perhaps finding that the parliament has relative unanimity about a whole range of issues to do with modernisation or changes to the Development Act that we could all happily sign up for.

That may or may not turn out to be possible, I do not know, but I am certainly up for the discussion about that. That offer is made in the spirit of attempting to find out whether there is a whole range of concepts and ideas that, basically, everyone is sitting here privately having and not realising that the rest of us have the same ideas. If that were the case, it would be a pity if we did not do something about it, but that is a discussion for another day.

That explains why I do not support this now, and when I say 'this' I do not mean the whole bill, I just mean Mr Parnell's contribution. Aside from that, I think my position will be that all the amendments suggested in the other place are acceptable, and I foreshadow that that is the way we are going.

Mr Venning: It's turned you grey.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It has. So, other than to answer specific questions as we go along, that is really all I wish to say.

Ms CHAPMAN: I indicate that the member for MacKillop, our deputy leader, is the lead speaker on this matter. I have made my position very clear on these bills in the McLaren Vale debate, and I will be brief on this bill. The Barossa Valley is a beautiful place, and full credit goes to the people of the Barossa Valley for that occurring. It does not need this bill and it certainly does not need your government to go in there and bugger it up.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon M.J. Wright): Order!

Mr PICCOLO: I would like to pose two questions to the minister. To clarify, if and when this bill is passed and enacted and the interim DPA lifted, would it be correct to say that if you were permitted to build a house on an allotment in the Barossa Council area you could do so after?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That is what they call the status quo antebellum question, and I think the answer is yes.

Mr PICCOLO: If all the other things are true, if someone wanted to have some sort of industrial activity near the townships, will this bill prevent that from occurring?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, this bill does not seek to regulate the management of industrial activities. That would be dealt with under the existing plan regime; it would either be okay or not, according to that regime. It would not be affected by this.

Mr VENNING: As the member representing this area, can I say that this has been a long saga. In September last year, the Minister for Planning announced with great fanfare that the government would move to protect the Barossa Valley and the McLaren Vale regions from urban sprawl. It was obvious that the government was trying to recover from its poor handling of the Mount Barker development issues. I will remind the house that Mount Barker was never going to happen in the Barossa.

The concept was widely supported and it was presumed that generally development restrictions would be applied to the rural industry and agricultural areas of the region, not within towns. I attended the launch and supported the general principle of this. I thank the minister for including me in the function at Lehmann's Winery. There was a general feeling of support, not knowing exactly what was going to happen. However, I was cautious from the start because I was concerned about council losing some of its power.

In my 22 years here, I have learnt to be cautious of any legislation where a government is taking power away from another section of government, particularly if it is local government. That is what I was generally concerned about in the first place and I did take it up with the council. The council was in love with the idea in the first instance; I was not. Many a discussion and argument was had.

When the first draft legislation and DPA were released on 28 September, townships were included and would fall under the jurisdiction of this legislation. There were also some developments that were defined as non-desirable. They were fast food franchises, hobby farms, etc., and many in the community were very curious about why hobby farms were included as this was not something that had been raised at any of the previous meetings or in submissions as an issue. Interestingly, wind farms were not included in this list. So, effectively, in this first draft, the Barossa is being protected but wind farms across the Barossa ranges would be allowed, which I would never support.

The effect of the interim DPA was immediate, and the minister spoke at length about that just a few moments ago, and I agree with everything he said. It was a broad-brushed, hard-hitting effect and it did cause angst. New development applications and proposals ground to a halt and the Barossa Council (95 per cent of the council area was affected, much more than any other council), which was originally supportive of the intent to protect the Barossa, sought relief. The mayor made a public comment, and I will quote it:

We advised the minister that while council completely supported the original intent of the bill and the DPA to protect the Barossa against urban sprawl and inappropriate industrial development, the draft bill and DPA had, in our view, gone too far.

That was Brian Hurn, Barossa Council mayor, on 17 November 2011. As the minister just said quite clearly, there was confusion with this and all of us—me included—saw this DPA as a real spook. It spooked the community big time, and people who were going through developments were told that they could not proceed. I think there was an overreaction on behalf of some people and I, as a member, really got hammered about what we were going to do about this.

We then saw the second edition of the DPA and the bill was released in April, when the realisation hit that the proposed legislation and planning restrictions were seriously flawed. I give the minister credit for that: it was changed, and I do not think there was too much politicking about that. It was done. I did not get on to the media and have a go at the minister for doing that.

The second iteration of the DPA saw some of the ridiculous restrictions of the first corrected but, for some, the damage was already done. I know of at least one large business associated with the building industry that had to close its doors and lay off workers due to the downturn in the industry. That is not an exaggeration. I know that some of these companies were pretty cautious because things were pretty tight, particularly in relation to the wine industry, and this was enough to say, 'That's it.'

The initial draft bill included Keyneton in the Barossa Valley district protection area, encompassing the historic Henschke Winery. However, when the second draft of the bill was released, Keyneton was no longer in the protection zone. If this is not an example of policy on the run, then I do not know what is.

I think defining character values is fraught with difficulty—different character values across the district. Character values will not always be black and white. I think this may cause some difficulties in the future as it is very much open to interpretation.

Another very interesting point regarding this whole flawed process is that the projects highlighted in the state government's own 30-year plan, particularly the area earmarked for residential development (Tanunda East), has been delayed and, even though it had approval and was in the government's own plan, it still has not been signed off. I hope the minister will be able to do that; I assume you said you would. It has caused a fair bit of angst around the place. It is already done; the community accepts that. I know not everybody does but I think the majority does.

No-one is arguing that the region should be protected from urban sprawl. I am one of the first people to support the retention and preservation of primary agricultural farmland, but the way this whole process has been managed by the government would be laughable if it was not so serious and it did not have as much impact on people's lives as it does. I have no problem (and I never have) about protecting those farmlands. It was never an issue, but when they got into the encroachment of towns it caused all sorts of problems.

I commend the work of all the councillors involved. Two versions of the restrictive DPAs have placed enormous strain on the council's planning department and officers, and they have done a great job communicating at the coalface with residents and me as the MP. I pay credit to Louis Monteduro and Mark Mickan, the two planners of council.

As the minister has just said—and I will not repeat the words because I don't have the courage I suppose—it was difficult for them. They were the meat in the sandwich and they were getting instructions and it was a difficult time. But they got through it and I pay credit to them. I also want to pay credit to councillor Susie Reichstein. She is on my staff and she certainly was able to give me the shining light of what they were trying to do. It was a moving feast, minister, as you said.

In effect, all the government was trying to do with the interim DPA and bill was to protect itself from itself which, given the Mount Barker debacle, no-one can disagree with. We do not want to see what happened there happening to the historic Barossa region. Under the previous council's Barossa better development plan in its DPA, it certainly had a very strong hand in what was happening in the Barossa.

I have said before on the record, and I do not think it is dangerous to say, some years ago I saw an opportunity to buy a house in the Barossa and I saw some beautiful houses alongside the Para River and land behind. I thought what a waste that was and I should buy the house and do hammer head developments. Well, there was no way in the world; it was against the rules and there was no way in the world that was ever going to happen and never will, purely because of where it was. It was one question to the council and the answer was totally and definitely no.

It has been consistent. Nobody has ever done it and nobody ever will. That have been very consistent and very protective of what they have there. I pay tribute to the Barossa Council, although they did change tack somewhat, and particularly the four Barossa luminaries as I call them. The minister has named them. I understand that they were in here today. The problem I have with that, though, is that we have an elected body up there. People elect them, but when you have four prominent people get up there and make public comment, it makes it very difficult for the elected people to come out and counter the argument.

There were some interesting arguments going around. I got some very interesting phone calls. I noted the minister's response to the McLaren Vale bill yesterday the developments that would have been approved before legislation will be allowed to proceed. I want to quote that because I really appreciate this. I want to read it onto the record so that everyone can see it and know that this is what is going to happen:

I can say that it is my intention that, once the legislation is passed, we will be able to revert to the pre-existing regime, and that would mean, to be quite particular about it, that, if prior to this legislation being introduced, you owned a parcel of land and you were able, under the then existing planning regime, to make an application to put a building on it—or any other activity, for that matter—you should have the opportunity to continue to make such an application, as you always did.

Well, that sums it up. That is a lot of the fear that has been there and it has been totally dispelled with just that comment. I also noticed that you referred to the interim DPA as a prophylactic measure. I think the term you used is to stop things happening. It certainly did stuff things up a bit. I cannot use the other word because it is unparliamentary. Yes, it is an interesting word.

Minister, I certainly appreciate that. This has been a fairly painful process and it has created precedents; already other regions are looking at it, as you would know. Planning has become a difficult and complicated process, and I hope this alleviates this somewhat. For the record, I do support a McDonald's or a derivative of it or other like business in the Barossa in a proper location.

I know the four luminaries do not agree with me—I have had phone calls about that. I have seen McDonald's in Paris, Nuremberg and Bordeaux, where it is not the normal big golden arch, but it is usually in a historic building and very appropriately placed. I cannot see any problem with having one in the Barossa. I know that is perhaps controversial but, as I said, I have seen it all over the world. The Barossa is a wonderful region and well worth preserving and protecting, but it has to be allowed to live and the local economy has to be sustainable.

Finally, it has been a long and drawn-out process. Yes, we have had a good go at this, and I thank the minister very much for his cooperation. I appreciate the minister's willingness to talk to us in and around this building at any time. Also, David Ridgway, my colleague, spent many hours on this issue. It is up to us now to make it work and ensure our constituents are aware of what the new law means and how it will affect them. I am a farmer and, as I said, I do not like to see farming land being lost because, as we know, we have more and more people to feed and every day we lose hundreds of acres of productive land in the world.

I again thank all those involved. I will even thank Mr Andrew Grear from the minister's department. He is a very strong character, and I appreciated the frankness and the briefings he gave us. He certainly is a Sir Humphrey, minister: I do not know whether you have any difficulty with him. Planning is a difficult issue, and I cannot criticise these people because it is a very involved business and it affects people's lives. I really think that things that divided us on this matter are overshadowed by those things we agree on. I, too, will have a look at section 6A: I was not quite sure. Somebody mentioned it and then I forgot about it. I will have a good look at that and, again, follow your cue—and, also, no doubt, council will have something to say about it.

So, we are over this. The Liberal Party would have liked our amendments passed, and the shadow minister will probably talk about in a minute, but I am sure the council is still a vital part of this process. I hope the minister can now address the Tanunda East issue.

Mr PICCOLO: I would like to make a few comments about this bill. As the minister indicated himself, the process perhaps could have been a little better. Having said that, though, I think both the government and the council could have done better.

The objective of this bill, as I understand it, is basically to preserve the character of the Barossa area for two primary reasons: first, to enable ongoing primary production in the area and to ensure that we do not lose valuable primary production land and, secondly, to recognise the character and the importance of tourism in that region for the economy and also for the people of the area.

In terms of making sure that we have productive land in the region, I note the potential for land use conflicts if we were to allow further urban and residential development, because I notice the minister has mentioned that industrial development can still occur. This is an issue that has been raised in the sustainable farming committee by a number of people, and this bill addresses some of the discussions we have already had in that committee.

I have talked about the process, and when people have differences of opinion there are two ways to tackle a difference of opinion: you can turn up the heat and make sure that your view is the only view that is heard and your view is the predominant view (which does not actually resolve the conflict), or you can actually shed some light on the issue, therefore hoping to get a resolution quickly rather than later. In this regard, I do not think the council response was one which helped shed light on it.

In fact, because part of the Barossa Council area is in my electorate, a number of people came to me concerned about the impact of this bill on their properties and livelihood in the longer term. One of the issues is that the Barossa Council, in one of its fliers that was sent out to the community, which was then sent to me by some ratepayers, failed to distinguish the difference between prohibited development and noncomplying development, so people read noncompliant to be prohibited; in other words, you just cannot do it. When you sat down with people and explained to them the difference, you also explained to them that, once the bill was enacted and the interim DPA lifted, the intention was that the pre-existing conditions would come to the fore again, and that if it was noncomplying then, it would be noncomplying, etc.

In fact, in the meantime, a number of people have actually applied, even with the provisions of the interim DPA in place, to build a home and do other things, and have gone through the process; some have been approved. Unfortunately, there was a lot of scaremongering in that area. I would not entirely agree with the member for Schubert's comments about who said what and who added fuel to the fire. Certainly, from what I read in the local paper—perhaps I read a different edition to the member for Schubert—some of the comments he made at the time did not actually clarify this issue either. Perhaps he did not understand it. Perhaps as a government we did not explain it properly.

Mr Venning: Now or then?

Mr PICCOLO: Then. Yes, you would have to acknowledge that.

Mr Venning interjecting:

Mr PICCOLO: Yes. Well, you have to ask questions. I sought clarification at the time. I understood it. If I can understand it, surely everyone else can as well. Putting that aside, in fairness to the council, since that they have actually processed a number of applications for noncomplying developments and some have been approved, but there was a time there when confusion reigned.

I would say the comments made in this place by a number of members at the time did not help the issue at all. They actually inflamed the issue. I am not sure if it was deliberately to mislead the people, but it certainly misled the people, and as I said, when you sat down with people and explained to them what it meant, most of them said, 'Okay, not happy, but we can actually see a way through this issue,' and so they did.

The main concern raised with me in meetings which I arranged between various farmers and also government officials was (and the minister has responded today), 'Do I also have a right to build a home if I have an existing right to build a home on a separate title?' The minister basically said yes. The second concern was, 'I have some land, which is actually adjacent to an industrial area. I would like my area to be considered for industrial development. Can I do that?' Certainly you can apply to do that under the normal rules, the current rules which are in place.

The concerns which have been raised with me have, in the main, been addressed. What this will do is stop the urban sprawl, which I think everybody agrees to. One of the comments which has been made by a number of members of the opposition is that this government has run roughshod over local government in this regard. They talked about a whole range of examples and said that we do not care about local government. I just inform the house that the last ministerial DPA which was successfully challenged in the Supreme Court and knocked off was actually a Liberal government DPA; yes, a Liberal government DPA. In fact, it was in February 2002. The Supreme Court handed down its decision to knock out a DPA—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PICCOLO: That's right. In February 2002, the Supreme Court knocked out a DPA put in place by then minister Laidlaw on behalf of the then Kerin government, I think it would have been. So when it comes to evidence of riding roughshod over the local government, if you look at the court system and judicial adjudication, it was the Liberal Party which did that. I was actually mayor of the town at the time. We challenged the Liberal government over that, and the Supreme Court agreed with us. No other DPA, despite all the rhetoric in this place, has been knocked out by any court since then.

When you look at the record, it is the Liberal Party which has ignored local government and it is the Liberal Party which was held to account. The irony was that the Supreme Court handed down its decision on this DPA in February 2002 on the very same day that the Liberal government fell. I suppose to some extent that was justice served.

As I said, when you cut through what has been said here, this proposal does one thing and one thing alone: it prevents urban sprawl, it prevents people speculating in those areas in developing land and it also prevents land prices being pushed up in a very unhealthy way which makes farming unfinancial. When you have developers who push the boundaries further out, they actually make adjacent farming land much more expensive, which makes it also less viable.

With those comments, noting that the minister has addressed the concerns I have raised and noting what this bill intends to do, I think the bill will get some community support and I will support it.

Mr WILLIAMS: The member for Light has encouraged me to say more than I was going to say about this matter.

An honourable member: Heaven forbid!

Mr WILLIAMS: Heaven forbid! May I first of all point out to anybody who is reading this in the Hansard that I made some comments yesterday, which are on page 3118, with regard to the very similar matter at McLaren Vale. I will try not to repeat those comments, but I do want to make a couple of general comments about planning and what it is about.

I was involved in local government between the years of 1981 and 1989. I think the Planning Act 1982 came into being whilst I was in local government, and I recall, as a young councillor, my shock and horror as we went about developing the first plan for the district in those days. I thought, 'What is this going to do to the people's rights?'

The Planning Act, and now the Development Act 1993, which subsumed the earlier planning legislation, has certainly impinged on the rights people enjoyed prior to that, but I think we have to ask ourselves, and should ask ourselves quite regularly, what we want to get from planning and orderly planning—and that is what the Development Act tries to achieve. If I just go to section 3—the objects of the Development Act 1993—and read some of the objects, I think it will give us an insight into what the parliament has, over the years, wanted the Development Act to achieve for the state.

Paragraph (a) states 'to establish objectives and principles of planning and development', and I do not think anybody would object or disagree with that; paragraph (b) states 'to establish a system of strategic planning governing development', and I think we would all want that to happen; paragraph (c) states 'to provide for the creation of Development Plans', with four subparagraphs; and I think paragraph (e) is quite important, that is, 'to provide for appropriate public participation in the planning process and the assessment of development proposals'.

It has always been my belief that the orderly development under the various legislation we have had in this state since the early 1980s—so, for about 30 years—was about assisting people by letting them know what would be what we call a 'complying development' and then, if somebody was proposing something which was complying, that it be approved in a speedy manner. It was also about setting up a regime to allow things which are not contemplated in the plan to be assessed on their merits ,and generally to allow these proposals to be assessed on their merits by the community. At the end of the day, it is the community that is affected, and surely the community should have a right to have that debate from time to time about what should be allowable within their community and within their environment.

I have never believed that planning should be about banning things. I do not believe that, at any point in time, any level of government should try to say to some future group of people, 'You cannot do this.' I think those decisions should be left to that future group of people, but what we have done in this piece of legislation has walked away from that principle. We have said today that we do not want something to happen and we do not want it to happen for ever in the future, not that we can actually ban it but we can make it difficult to happen. I think that flies in the face of what our planning law has said and done for the last 30 years.

Interestingly, the minister has not said that he wants to change the fundamental principle that sits behind our planning law: he wants to have the best of both worlds. He wants to cherrypick a couple of sites within the state and argue that they need to be treated differently from any other site. Politically I can understand why he is doing it, and this is politically driven, there is no doubt about that. Notwithstanding what the member for Mawson said yesterday, this is all about the seat of Mawson and preserving that seat in the hands of the Labor Party.

Mr Bignell: All you guys have got to do is turn up and listen to the people down there and you'll find out it's a decision by the community.

Mr WILLIAMS: I agree. I love to listen to the people, and that is what I am arguing. I am sorry, Mr Acting Chair, I am responding to the member for Mawson. I am making the argument that it is the people who should be making the decision. I am sure there are people in McLaren Vale who have another opinion as well. What we are doing is saying, 'You cannot consider any particular proposal on its merits as a local community because some of us have got the government of the day to say, no, this will never happen.'

I am just making the argument that I think that is poor use of planning law, just as the government introducing just on 12 months ago the DPA to allow wind farms to be developed where they had been knocked back, where proposals had been knocked back by the local community, as in the community of Allendale just outside of my electorate in the Lower South-East, where they had been through the planning process and the people, the community down there, said, 'We don't want this wind farm development to continue down parallel to the coast and come up cheek by jowl with a closely settled community.'

The government of the day said, 'Sorry, we don't believe that the community should have the right to have that say.' So they brought down a DPA which took away the right of the community to oppose the development. That is the complete opposite, I remind the member for Mawson, of what the government is doing in this case. In the case of the seat of Mawson the government has said, 'We will stop development for ever, or make it nigh on impossible for ever.'

However, in the case of my community, which had been through the process and won the day, the government said, 'Sorry, we will never win that seat so we will not only overturn the wishes of that community, we will give the wind farm developer the opportunity to go back and start the process again.' And lo and behold! What has happened in the meantime? They now have planning approval to build a wind farm just outside of the town of Millicent in my electorate, where I do not believe they would have got approval through the pre-existing process. I am making these points—

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: No, this is not about Schubert; this is about Mawson. I am making this point because I think in both instances the government has abused the planning system; that is the point I am making. The opposition is very disappointed that the amendments that we moved in the other place were not adopted by the other house. I would much prefer to be here arguing the case for those amendments. I know that the government was fundamentally opposed to them, but I would much prefer to be here arguing for those amendments than the one we have; but the first thing you learn in this place is how to count. Notwithstanding that, I would like to make a couple of other points.

The member for Light just made some points and talked about urban sprawl making farming difficult because it forces up land prices, so he is arguing that this is good because we have stopped that from happening in the Barossa Valley. I think the member for Light was being a little disingenuous. Every house that you stop from being built on one site, you cause to be built on another site. If there is a demand to build a house, the house will be built.

If you make a rule that you cannot build a house on site A, surely it will be built at some time on site B. Yes, through this measure we will stop urban sprawl moving into the Barossa Valley, and there are probably good reasons to do that, but we are pushing that urban sprawl into somebody else's backyard and imposing on some other farming community, probably to the west of the Barossa Valley, certainly to the north of greater metropolitan Adelaide, and we will see urban sprawl continue in that way.

I made the point yesterday, in the debate about the similar McLaren Vale bill, that one of the reasons we are even having this debate is that over a long period of time we as a state have failed to address this issue of the sprawl of Greater Adelaide. We have failed to come up with a solution and we have failed to pick up the vision. I mentioned Don Dunstan's vision of building a satellite city at Monarto, and I said that I thought that that would have been a great idea and that it was something I had always lamented did not occur.

We have failed as a state to develop our rural communities. We had a city of Whyalla with a population of some 35,000 people at its maximum, and I think its population now is around 23,000 to 24,000. We had already developed the infrastructure on that site to house and have jobs etc., for about 35,000 people. We allowed that to shrink. We have allowed pretty well all our regional communities to stagnate, at best, and, in a lot of instances, to shrink. We have done nothing positive or proactively as a state to grow our population outside greater metropolitan Adelaide, apart from places like Mount Barker and possibly Murray Bridge.

I think the Mount Barker experience is another one of the drivers behind this piece of legislation because the government got that terribly wrong. As the minister conceded, that will not happen again under his watch. I am pleased to hear that and, again, Mount Barker went wrong because the government took away the decisions from the local community. Planning should be about the local community having its say about what it wants to happen in its backyard. It should not be about somebody sitting down here on North Terrace directing what will happen at Mount Barker, what will not happen at McLaren Vale, what will not happen in the Barossa Valley, what will happen at Buckland Park, and taking away those decisions and those choices from the local community.

That, I believe, is bad planning, and that is why this government, certainly with regard to Mount Barker, ended up in the mix that it did, and that is why this minister has said, 'That will not happen under my watch.' He has learnt the lesson, but the lesson I suspect he has failed to learn is that good planning is about letting the local community make its own decisions about what it wants in its community.

One of the things that has always disturbed me about planning from way back in those days I mentioned in the early 1980s is that I always feared that, if you had a very strong planning system, you would end up with every community looking the same because they would all be driven by the same planning principles. I think that would be a disaster, too, but the thing this state has really missed out on is decentralising our wealth and our population, and I think that that is the answer to doing something about this urban sprawl of Greater Adelaide. It will be better for the environment, it will be much cheaper as a state, and I think we would get great economic benefit from doing it.

You do not go into any other state—except possibly Western Australia, certainly not in the Eastern States—and have the situation where you have one great big city and then just a small number of very small communities. That is what we have in South Australia. We have to drive for four hours north to get to Whyalla, around and through Port Augusta, to get to a decent-sized city of over 20,000 people or four hours almost into Victoria to get to Mount Gambier. They are our only two communities of over 25,000 people outside of greater metropolitan Adelaide.

I believe we will see that sort of population in the not too distant future, probably in Mount Barker, and we may end up seeing Mount Barker as just another satellite of Adelaide. But where is our plan to grow, say, the Port Lincoln area, the cities around the Upper Spencer Gulf, the communities in the Riverland, the lower Fleurieu into communities of 50,000 plus people? I think you can do that without getting the problems we are seeing in greater metropolitan Adelaide.

I remember getting some information many years ago, when we were in government. Di Laidlaw, who was the planning minister at the time, brought a paper to our party room that compared the costs, the imposts, of developing at a place like, say, Buckland Park by the time you put in the transport infrastructure, the power infrastructure, the telecommunications infrastructure as opposed to urban infill. That was 10 or 15 years ago, and we have not seriously addressed that issue.

I did say to a number of people that I was not going to speak very long about this, but planning is something I am passionate about and something that I have been passionate about for a long time. It disturbs me that in South Australia we still have this huge problem, that all our development is happening on the fringes of greater metropolitan Adelaide, and we do not seem to have come up with any answer. I do not think that the approach taken in this piece of legislation and the piece of legislation we were discussing yesterday has done anything to overcome that bigger problem. I conclude my remarks there.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

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