HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-24 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

DEVELOPMENT (ADVISORY COMMITTEE ADVICE) AMENDMENT BILL

Committee Stage

In committee.

(Continued from 10 November 2010.)

Clause 3.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: At the time we last debated this bill, we adjourned the debate in order to give instruction to the Development Policy Advisory Committee and its chair to give, where possible, people with the most direct personal interest in the matter being discussed an opportunity to speak first. At the time, the Labor Party had not had a chance to take it to their caucus, so I agreed to report progress. We have a late night ahead of us, so I will not speak any longer. I hope the Labor Party has had a chance to take it to their caucus and that they have had favourable deliberations and can see their way to support my amendment.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Sadly, the government does not support the amendments, nor do we support the bill. As I indicated last week, we think it would be unwise to put such a prescriptive requirement on the President of DPAC. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with the President of DPAC at one of my regular meetings since then and discussed the issue of chairing meetings. As the chairman has pointed out to me, sometimes people have to leave early and sometimes there are all sorts of arrangements that need to be made, and he does his best to fit in.

One really has to give the President of DPAC some flexibility in how he runs the meetings. I am sure the chair of DPAC would be quite happy to take on board the views of parliament. He runs these public meetings to the best of his ability, but one has to allow for the fact that there will be times when he has to act with some flexibility. If you start putting in prescriptive measures and for some reason they are not observed, someone could challenged the whole process of DPAC just on the basis that somebody did not speak in the right order, and I do not think that is the sort of outcome one would want. As I said, the government is opposed to the Leader of the Opposition's amendment and, of course, we remain opposed to the bill as a whole.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As I have indicated previously, I do not support the amendment. I agree with the minister that it is overly prescriptive. It is not something that was in my original bill, and I am not keen to see it added.

Amendment negatived.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I move:

Page 2, line 10—Delete 'after subsection (15)' and substitute 'after subsection (18)

This amendment is to direct the minister to release the DPAC advice to the minister after the minister has made public his or her decision on the issue. I also had a discussion with the chair of the Development Policy Advisory Committee, and he indicated that he thought that was a more appropriate way to do it rather than prior to that time. I thought that was a sensible way forward and, of course, we delayed the progress of the bill about a month ago so that I could have that discussion with the chair.

I did visit Mount Barker last Friday for a bit of a site visit. I have been up there a number of times, but I caught up with a couple of locals there. I was a little disturbed because I was informed that there is an email list circulating of some 1,300 people, who communicate regularly and oppose the rezoning in some way, shape or form, I assume, saying that I had blocked the legislation and that I was some sort of two-headed ogre for standing in the way of the legislation.

I was very disappointed. I asked the people who told me about it to provide me with a copy. They were somewhat reluctant. They said that they did not want to give me the 1,300 names. I told them that I did not want the 1,300 names but that I would like a copy of what has been said. As I pointed out to them, whoever had given them that information was not telling them the full story. This is an amendment bill, proposed by the Hon. Mark Parnell in the Legislative Council, which, if supported by the Legislative Council, would then have to travel to the House of Assembly and go through the whole process there.

The story being spread was that I had delayed it so that the minister would make his decision prior to being forced to release the information because we would pass it through this council. I am disturbed at that because it is clearly inaccurate and someone has been spreading the inaccuracies within that group of some 1,300 people. Clearly, someone who thought they knew enough about the process told those 1,300 people only a little bit of the process.

I hope that I will be provided with a copy of what has been said because clearly it is not accurate. We had some other amendments, and as we all know they had to pass both houses of parliament for DPAC to be compelled to provide advice to the minister, which would then, of course, be released prior to the decision. So, I am a bit disappointed that those stories are circulating because they are inaccurate.

Having said that, I note that the minister has agreed to release the DPAC advice after he makes the decision, so I am not sure whether that means that the government is prepared to support this amendment to make it a regular occurrence and to make the way that DPAC operates part of the whole procedure. I certainly urge members to support this amendment.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Obviously the amendment moved by the Hon. Mr Ridgway is preferable to the Hon. Mr Parnell's provision in the bill. So, to that extent I guess we can support it, even though I will be opposing the bill as a whole, because, as I said, we do not believe this is necessary. As I indicated publicly last week, the government is always aware of the need for decision-making which is in the best interests of South Australia but also the need for transparency. After weighing up the need for the public interest to be served by good policy-making against the desire for greater transparency, I have decided to make DPAC advice available online at www.dpac.sa.gov.au once a final decision has been made on a DPA.

Following consultation with the DPAC chairman I instructed the Department of Planning and Local Government to make available the advice that is provided for DPAs completed since 2007. By completed, I think one or two are still in there, probably partly due to the Hon. Mr Parnell's urging of particular councils to challenge them in the courts. Certainly, for those that have completed the process, that is, have been considered by the ERD Committee and accepted, I have made them available on the website and it would be my intention to do that in the future. That information has been on the DPAC website since Monday 15 November.

Good policy making would be unnecessarily encumbered if advice from bodies such as DPAC were made public before the state government had made a final decision. It is one thing to have transparency of the decision and to have people to look back at a decision to see whether that has been appropriately made by the government; it is another to use advice from bodies to try to shift the debate in relation to a decision that has not yet been made.

Certainly I would think most reasonable South Australians would conclude that it was sensible policy that advice from advisory committees such as DPAC would be made available but not before the decision was actually made. That is consistent with our freedom of information laws that appropriately provide an exemption for internal working documents but make the final reports available. I think it is entirely consistent with what we do under freedom of information policy.

Importantly, this process that the government has adopted will allow the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of parliament the opportunity to properly scrutinise these planning decisions. Making DPAC advice available to the public after the ERD Committee has the opportunity to scrutinise each development plan amendment achieves both the desired objectives of prudent policy making and appropriate transparency.

In other words, the government has already made a decision in relation to placing the policy on the website after a decision is made. As I said, it was under the FOI laws. There is no doubt it would have been made available for anyone searching it, so the government thinks we might as well put that up anyway. We are not frightened of the decisions that the government makes.

DPAC is just one source of advice that the government takes. As minister I do take it very seriously, but we do not believe it is necessary to pass this bill. In relation to this particular amendment, it does reflect the government's intention and, therefore, we will not be opposing it; however, I will oppose the bill at its third reading.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: What we have here are three options that have been put forward. My bill says that the community should have a right to see this advice once it has been given to the minister. In other words, within two days of the minister receiving it, the minister should publish the advice. The Hon. David Ridgway's amendment says that the publication of that advice would take place two days after the minister has made a decision.

The minister's press release proposes that the advice would be made public about a month after the minister has made a decision. I might just take the opportunity to ask the minister if he can clarify what he said in his press release which is 'in future, all DPAC advice is to be published once the ERD Committee of parliament concludes its scrutiny of minister and council-initiated development plan amendments'.

Can I get the minister to clarify whether the situation is as set in this news release, or is the minister now proposing that the publication would occur after gazettal? Bear in mind that the ERD Committee has two months after gazettal. The minister, having gazetted a rezoning, then has a month to send it to the ERD Committee; the ERD Committee then has a month to consider it. Potentially, under the minister's arrangement, it could be two months after the decision before the public get to see this advice. So can the minister clarify whether that is the case?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: It was my intention that I would table DPAC advice once the process was completed and the decision was made. I suppose technically there are two ways of looking at it. One is when the decision is gazetted but, given that the ERD Committee process is part of the technical decision making and there have been instances—and I am sure the honourable member knows because he is on the ERD Committee—where there have been alterations made to a development plan amendment following consideration by the ERD Committee, it would seem to be sensible, as was mentioned in my statement, that we do it after the ERD Committee has completed its consideration of the matter. One can have a debate about the technicality of that but, after all, the ERD committee itself, I assume, has—

The Hon. M. Parnell: That was going to be my next question: does the ERD Committee get DPAC advice?

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): The honourable minister should resume his seat before the honourable member speaks.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: The Hon. Mr Parnell, having been on the committee for a number of years, probably knows that better than me. I know that the officers of my department regularly go in and ask for it. The consideration I gave to the matter was that we should make it after the ERD Committee has completed it, but what advice the ERD Committee gets, as I said, is up to the committee. I am not quite sure what the situation is in relation to that, but I think the sensible position is that DPAC advice be put up on the web and be made publicly available once the ERD Committee has completed its consideration, because that is when the process is completed.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I thank the minister for his answer. I am not entirely satisfied, and I will not pretend to speak for the Hon. Michelle Lensink, but my view would be that, if we were to have, on the ERD Committee, that DPAC advice, it would make our consideration of these development plan amendments a far more useful process for us. At present, the ERD Committee simply has to wait for members of the public who are aggrieved by a rezoning decision to come to us and see if we can recommend further changes. I would urge the minister to take on notice the suggestion that the ERD Committee be provided with a copy of the DPAC advice to assist in its deliberations.

The dilemma we have is that the three models are: the legislated Parnell model, which is where you get to see the advice before the final decision is made; the legislated Liberal solution, which is where you get to see the advice after the decision is made; and the announced position of the minister, which is that you get to see the advice a little later after the decision is made. So, at one level you could say that the Liberal model has a chance of getting up so let us support that, but I come back to the basic principle which is that this is not the bill that I introduced.

The bill that I introduced was for members of the public, the people of Mount Barker, Gawler, Port Adelaide and from all the other DPAC meetings I have been to, who have wanted to see the advice when it was concluded. I do not accept the minister's assurance that somehow this is consistent with freedom of information laws in relation to internal working documents, because the DPAC advice is not an internal working document.

The minister might think that it is a helpful document for him in making his decision, but in fact it is a final report of a statutory committee. It is not a working report or a working document; it is not a half finished document. The final report of the Development Policy Advisory Committee goes to the minister and DPAC then washes its hands of it. So, it is not an internal working document at all.

My position is that I do not support the Liberal amendment, and if that amendment fails I would urge the Liberals to support my original bill, which does provide for disclosure at the appropriate time.

Amendment carried.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I move:

Page 2—

Line 11—Delete '(15a)' and substitute:

(18a)

Lines 11 and 12—Delete 'of receiving advice of the Advisory Committee under subsection (15)' and substitute:

after the publication of a notice under subsection (17)

Line 13—Delete 'the advice' and substitute:

any advice of the Advisory Committee received under subsection (15).

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 4.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I move:

Page 2—

Line 22—Delete 'after subsection (5c)' and substitute:

after subsection (10)

Line 23—Delete '(5ca)' and substitute:

(10a)

Lines 23 and 24—Delete 'of receiving advice of the Advisory Committee under subsection (5c)(c)' and substitute:

after the publication of a notice under subsection (9)

Line 25—Delete 'the advice' and substitute:

any advice of the Advisory Committee received under subsection (5c)(c)

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (23:12): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (23:12): As I indicated, the government will oppose the bill at the third reading, certainly with the amendments that the Hon. Mr Ridgway has made. It is closer to the practice of the government, but we really believe that it is unnecessary to put in legislation with such restrictive requirements. The DPAC reports are, arguably, available under FOI legislation. We have given a commitment to put it on the website. It is unnecessary to pass a bill to require that and that is why we are opposed to it. However, I will not seek to waste the time of the council at this late stage by dividing. I just wanted to put on the record that we do not support it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (23:13): Given that I did not have the support to give the locals a voice first ahead of those who do not live in the community, I indicate that perhaps in the new year I will move a motion that the council requests the chair of DPAC, where possible, to provide an opportunity for local community members to speak first and have priority so that the chair of DPAC is aware, if the council supports that motion, of what we are thinking in this chamber.

Bill read a third time and passed.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT