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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-13 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC CONSULTATION

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:44): I rise today to speak about public participation in government decision-making. As everyone here would know, when Premier Weatherill took over from premier Rann, one of the changes we were told would be a big part of the new regime was that the old model of 'announce and defend' would be ditched in favour of a new model called 'consult and decide', but did anything actually change?

There are many examples over the last couple of years, since the new premier took office, where the government has failed to consult with communities over important issues or has ridden roughshod over other parts of government, most particularly local councils. Many of these examples are in the field of planning, but other portfolios exhibit similar behaviour. The classic example is one that I have mentioned here before, and I think it falls into the category of an own goal on the part of the government, which is the approval of the Mayfield development in Sturt Street some two weeks before the public meeting at which the development, and others like it, were to be discussed.

I describe that as an own goal because residents who turned up, in good faith, having made written submissions and ready to have their say, were, quite rightly, outraged that one of the most important decisions affecting their neighbourhood had already been made and was irreversible. When the government announced the expert panel review into planning, it made it clear that key questions the panel would be looking at were questions such as: the rules that govern planning, the criteria against which planning decisions were made and the identity of the decision-maker. Yet, we see all three of those being changed ad hoc and at the whim of government to this very day without consultation with local people, which I think makes the job of that expert panel very difficult.

People are approaching that exercise in good faith but what they are seeing happening around them is the government making decisions that ought properly be part of that process without putting it through that process. The example that I have used recently was in relation to the government deciding that developments of five storeys or more in some of the city fringe councils would not, in future, be assessed by local councils, as they had been previously. The ability to assess and approve those projects would be taken away from councils and given to the Development Assessment Commission. Yet, that was not flagged during the consultation.

According to media reports, at least two mayors only found out that their councils were to lose their powers when informed by the media. Certainly, mayor Lachlan Clyne from Unley said that he was very unhappy and expressed his view that councils were best placed to assess development. When I have raised that issue in this parliament, for example, during question time, the response from the government is to express some surprise that the Greens are not happy with the outcome. I think that just shows that the government does not get it, because this is not a matter of the ends justifies the means. There are a number of decisions that the government could make that the Greens and others would support, but they would miss the point if they make decisions without talking to local communities, effectively treating those communities with no respect.

The government has introduced, in the last little while, a number of other major changes to planning which radically affect the number and type of people who are consulted about development applications and the rights those people have. This chamber has passed two planning bills in recent times, and there are another three that we will be looking at this afternoon, which I will not go into now. Yesterday, we found the government playing a cruel hoax where they introduced these Greens' planning reforms into the lower house in government time as priority items of government business.

I was hoping against hope that the government had had a change of heart and perhaps was going to approve them, but it was simply a tactic to wedge the Liberals and try to point out some inconsistencies that they were said to have made in their public utterances. So, that was a cruel hoax. Whether the government manages to salvage any credibility in relation to its public consultation behaviours before the election is a matter for the voters to determine. My plea is that the government, even if it is a last minute conversion, will learn something from these cases.

Time expired.

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