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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Planning, Development and Infrastructure Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (19:47): I feel that the last few things I said just before the dinner break may well have been lost with people. We started getting a bit philosophical. I was quoting Professor David Harvey in relation to the rights of the city, and I think that once the clock has ticked over to 6 o'clock it is difficult to keep people's attention. Nevertheless, the relevance of the quote I gave was that it poses the question about whether the objectives or, as we use in legislative parlance, the objects of the bill are the right ones.

In other words, is this bill about promoting healthy communities, good neighbourliness, equity of access to public resources and a culture of sharing? Will it help us live good lives, be nice to each other and tread softly on the planet? Normally, when you talk like that, people roll their eyes and they think, 'Well, Parnell is off with the fairies. He has completely lost it', but think about it. Is our existence in cities purely as consumers and part of the economic cycle or is there more to it? If there is more to it, and this is a bill about planning for cities, then why do we not ensure that the bill has as its objects the things we are really trying to achieve? The bill, according to its objects clause, states:

The primary object of this Act is to support and enhance the State's prosperity…

It then goes on to identify that this will be achieved through a planning system that 'promotes and facilitates development'. It is only as a secondary objective, the creation of a scheme:

…for community participation in relation to the initiation and development of planning policies and strategies.

But if you are looking for more social or environmental objectives, they are much further down the list in subsidiary principles of planning. I made the point before the dinner break, and I will say it again, that development and economic activity is not an end in itself; it is basically a means to an end, and that end is a cohesive community, a coherent and caring society and one that treads more lightly on the planet.

At a technical level, what is unsurprising about the bill and about all predecessor bills is that it has at its heart two main issues: first of all, the writing of planning policy, in other words, writing the rules; and, secondly, making decisions about individual development applications. This bill deals with both those points, as all previous bills have done, and that makes sense. The connection between the two is pretty simple: developments should fit within the planning rules; they should fit within the framework of planning policy. If the development does not fit or it cannot be made to fit, then it should be rejected.

But are they the only issues that the planning system should address? I would say that the planning system has been overly narrow in past years because it has been reluctant to deal with activities and the behaviour of people that also impact on our quality of life. The land use planning system has been very poor at regulating behaviour. Certainly, the planning system can zone land as being suitable for industry, but it does not speak to pollution. The planning system can create buffer zones, but they are often very crude, they are sometimes insufficient, and at other times they are unduly restrictive of other land uses.

We can zone land as suitable for farming, but the planning system is silent as to the impact of farming—for example, chemical use. That raises an interesting issue. The Hon. Robert Brokenshire often comes in here with legislation dealing with the right to farm which, on his interpretation, has included the right of farmers to pollute to the extent required in order to farm. The take-home message from legislation such as that is, 'Don't complain about spray drift or vapour drift; that's just part of farming.'

I think the planning system can be more robust, and I would like to think that in this bill we incorporate some principles that allow planning to go a bit further. I will just give one example that members would not have heard about. It is not earth shattering, but I think it is an important one. Several years ago, the town planner at Mallala had an idea that one way of using the planning system to overcome disputes between farmers and the growing residential population would be to try to zone land for a form of low impact farming. The sort of low impact farming they had in mind was, for example, organic farming that did not use chemicals and therefore was more safely conducted hard up against residential areas because there was no risk of spray drift and chemical contamination.

However, he was very quickly howled down. The people in Planning SA would have no bar of using the land use planning system to determine the type of farming. It was either a farming zone or it was not, and they were not prepared to countenance that you might have a type of farming zone that was low impact farming or, in particular, non-chemical farming. I think we can do better with the way we treat land use planning.

In terms of the problems with the system, whatever you think is wrong with the system will largely be determined by who you are. In other words, the answer to what is wrong with the planning system will differ whether you are the state government, a big developer wanting to build a new housing estate, a small developer wanting to add a swimming pool or a carport or a rumpus room, or whether you are a community group that wants to protect urban character or heritage. I want to go through some of the criticisms that have been made by those different sectors and problems they have identified with the planning system so that we can address the question of whether this new bill is, in fact, an improvement on the old.

That is the question: does the bill improve the status quo? If it does not improve the status quo, we should vote it down and stick with the status quo. f it does or can be made to improve the system, then it deserves support.

As I started to say before, one of the overall issues that we are looking at is: on whose behalf are we planning? Are we planning on behalf of the whole of the community? Are we planning on behalf of big developers? Are we slaves to trickle-down economics, so that we think whatever development people with money choose to undertake will necessarily be good for the rest of society as the benefits trickle down?

We also need to ask ourselves what the balance should be between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. I make no bones of the fact that I think that the balance is wrong. I think it is too far in favour of the executive and not enough in favour of the legislature and the judiciary. You may well say, 'You would say that', because I am not in the executive.

One of the problems we have got is that, even though in their heart of hearts many members of the opposition know that I am right when I am trying to put the brakes on the executive and the planning system, they tend to squib at the final moment, because they know that one of these decades they will win an election eventually and they will become the executive, and they want the powers that they rail against the government for exercising, but, of course, they will in government exercise them so much more sensibly; so they have never really supported a wholesale attack on the unfettered power of the executive, as I have been trying to do for the last 10 years.

In terms of the overall principles, there is one other one that I just want to touch briefly before I go into a sectorial analysis, and that is one of the points that is at the heart of the government's bill which I think it has got completely wrong and which I will be moving amendments to try to overturn. It relates to the government's assumption that the only proper time for citizens to be engaged in planning is at the front of the process when policy is being determined. The bill makes it very clear that when we get to the pointy end of the system, when individual development applications are being assessed, the role of the community will be severely curtailed.

The reason that I think the government has missed the point is because they have fundamentally failed to understand the way communities work and human nature. If we were living in a science experiment, I would agree with the government that technically, yes, if everyone gets involved in writing the planning policies, when individual developments come along no-one will need to have their say because they have had their say already, and it is very clear what is allowed and what is not, and therefore you do not bother notifying people about developments and you do not bother giving them appeal rights.

However, human nature as we know it and as I have certainly experienced it in the last 20 years is that, try as you may, you will only get a certain proportion of the population to get excited to come along and involve themselves in debates about planning policy. When I spoke at the Burnside Ballroom at the Community Alliance forum, to illustrate this point I put two photos up. Photo one was the meeting hall to discuss strategic planning—it is a room full of empty chairs.

The second photo was the meeting called to discuss the new development at the end of the street—that is full of people. You will fill a hall to talk about real developments happening in real neighbourhoods. You will struggle getting many people along to talk about generic planning policy. It is just the way it is. We can rail against it, we can say that people are stupid and they should get involved earlier, but it is not the way communities work.

Rather than insist on applying this theoretical model that communities should comply with the way the government want to do things, I think the government needs to just get with the project, and understand that people want to be engaged at all levels and not just at the planning policy level. In terms of the problems, the question we have to ask ourselves is: are they real or are they imaginary and to what extent are they addressed in the bill?

If you look at it from the government's perspective, one of the first problems that they have identified is that the quality of developments being approved is inadequate. To a certain extent, that issue is being dealt with in terms of new design processes that large developments have to go through, and those are processes under the existing act; so the new act I do not think will necessarily make much of an improvement there on top of the powers that are already available to government to insist on better design.

Many of the government's other stated problems with the planning system are shared with the development industry. I have talked about some of these already and I will not repeat them, but I think the government and industry have in common, for example, a concern that the level of building activity is too low and that somehow it is the fault of the planning system rather than the fault of the economy or the availability of finance, or anything like that.

As I mentioned, the government's hasty interim rezoning of land in the city was fuelled by a fear of not enough cranes on the skyline. The Mayfield development was the result, as I have explained. The point that I would make in terms of the level of building activity is, yes, we want to see people employed and we want to see a healthy building sector, but there are jobs in good development and there are jobs in bad development. It is not a question of an insistence on good development being bad for jobs. They are just different jobs; they are jobs building good developments.

The government and industry also complain that developments are not being approved either quickly enough or at a sufficient rate. I would disagree with that strongly. I note that on 17 November the annual report 2014-15 on the administration of the Development Act was tabled in the House of Assembly. I think it was probably tabled in this chamber as well, but they have a much better online recording system for tabled papers, so I have the version from the House of Assembly.

When you go through the figures that are in that report, the message that you get from it is that overwhelmingly the answer to development applications is yes. Overwhelmingly, developments are approved. The few that are not approved are either clearly inappropriate—they are people pushing the envelope—or where problems have arisen and the applications have been withdrawn. Overwhelmingly, they are approved.

I will refer to some statistics from one council a bit later on. I asked Norwood, Payneham & St Peters for their detailed development approval statistics. In a nutshell, there were over 1,000 approvals, worth well over $100 million, and they were nearly all approved within the statutory time frames; in terms of the averages and the medians, they were all pretty good. I do not think that is a real problem; I think that is an imaginary problem.

Developers and the government complain that different councils have different approaches to planning. From an industry point of view, they do like the idea of one size fits all and that if a development is good enough for the Barossa, it is good enough for McLaren Vale. If it is good enough for the inner suburbs, it is good enough for the outer suburbs. The result of that approach was this government regulation that I referred to earlier, the $3 million aggregate spending regulation which was used by the On the Run chain to get their developments through in a variety of locations.

They were not prepared to accept that different councils might have different standards and that something appropriate in one area was not appropriate in another. The housing development industry often complains that the different zones for different types of housing should be uniform. We do not live in a uniform society. Different areas have different character; I do not think we should be foisting one size fits all across the whole of Adelaide.

The industry complains about the cost of development, and in particular the cost of infrastructure. Interestingly, there are duelling consultants out there, addressing the question of whether infrastructure is more expensive in an infill situation or whether it is more expensive on the fringe. I must admit that I have always assumed that it was more expensive on the fringe, and there is certainly a government report that indicates that, but the Housing Industry Association is very keen for me to see their report which showed that, in fact, infill development was far more expensive from an infrastructure perspective. Again, there are some issues we have to look at there.

I mentioned that industry complains about delays in development. I do not think the statistics bear that out. Certainly, there is one area of considerable delay and that is in the planning policy area in rezonings in development plan amendments. My understanding is that overwhelmingly the cause of that delay is the state government and state government agencies rather than local councils.

The industry is very worried about the planning system imposing limitations on their future options. That is code for 'they like urban sprawl, they have made their money off urban sprawl, and they want to see more urban sprawl.' We will have that debate when we get to the committee stage next year and we deal with the urban growth boundary question.

The industry wants certainty of outcomes. They do not like appeals, obviously. They like to think that, having gone through an administrative process, whether it is with a council or the Development Assessment Commission, that that is it, and that a yes means a yes and no-one can challenge that.

I think the appeal statistics, as I have seen them, do not indicate a serious problem with third-party appeals. In fact, I have the statistics for probably the last four or five years and what you find is that applicant appeals—that is developer appeals—far outnumber third-party appeals and that the numbers have been fairly constant over the last several years.

For example in 2012-13, there were only 30 third-party appeals lodged. Mind you, seven of those resulted in a reversal of the decision so they were dead right. Most of those third-party appeals were resolved without the need for a hearing, but the third parties won more often than they lost when it actually went to a verdict.

In the year before that, 2011-12, there were 37 third-party appeals and, again, of those, 13 resulted in either a reversal of the original approval or a variation. Only three of those approvals survived intact, and each year the statistics are similar.

If we take the most recent figures, there were more third-party appeals—still less than half the number of applicant appeals—but of the 70 third-party appeals in the year 2014-15, the vast bulk of them (56 of them) were resolved without the need for a hearing. With only two the third party was basically thrown out and they lost, but with six of them it resulted in a reversal of the decision.

The point that you get from these statistics—I could go through more of them—is that third parties do not appeal lightly. They very rarely have the option of appealing; it is in very limited circumstances, and when they do they have more of a chance of winning than losing. I have said that as a fairly bold statement. What is hard to tell is the vast bulk of them that are settled. We do not know on what basis they are settled. Some of them might be settled with the appellant getting nothing. My guess would be that they would probably get something, but the point is that when they go to trial, third parties have a good record of proving their case.

When we look at problems with the planning system from the community perspective, certainly the issue of appeal rights and participation more generally is at the forefront. I mentioned before that the Community Alliance's slogan is 'putting the people back into planning'. If we want to look at the framework for how you do put people into planning, a good place to start is something like the European convention on public participation in environmental decision-making (known as the Aarhus Convention).

Whilst it is a European convention, it has been signed by lots of other countries outside Europe in Central America and Africa. Basically it says that there are three main components to public involvement. The first one is access to information, the second is public participation in decision-making, and the third is access to justice. That is a useful framework to look at this.

When it comes to access to information, my experience over many years is that councils, in particular, vary in the scope of information they provide, and state agencies are similar. It has often been a tortuous task to obtain access to documents involving going to a shopfront at the council or the DAC.

Sometimes, they will take photocopies for you; more often than not, they will not let you. Sometimes, they get very confused about laws of copyright and suggest that, even though something might be a category 3 development where you have a right of appeal, they will still deny you copies of the documents. My advice as a lawyer to people is, if you get any grief in terms of obtaining documents, just appeal. Just lodge an appeal, then they have to give you the documents, and they give them to you for free. That was always the comeback to reluctant planning officers not wanting to hand documents over.

This new planning bill, I think, in the regime of access to information, does hold potential to be a lot better. The planning portal, if used properly, could be a great tool for the community to actually get access to information, but only if the government is truly committed to it and it does it properly; in other words, it puts all the information online, it does not charge people for accessing online material, and it emphasises pushing material out rather than forcing people to make applications to bring material in. If they can get that right, then it could be a good case study.

As I have mentioned, I will be moving to delete the provision that says that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply. The point is, if you understand the Freedom of Information Act, it does not apply anyway if information is published. If an agency routinely publishes information, then the FOI Act is irrelevant but, if the government declines or refuses to publish information, why should the community not be able to go through the FOI system to at least access the umpire—the Ombudsman—in terms of accessing that information?

A blanket prohibition on FOI, coupled with an anal-retentive government that does not put much stuff up on the portal, is a disaster and will send us backwards. There is an element of trust involved, but I will be looking for commitments from the government in relation to what they put on the portal.

I actually mentioned the Mount Barker FOI case. The other one I did not mention was the Festival Plaza, behind Parliament House. I tried to get the documents about what they are proposing for behind Parliament House and, again, they dragged that out in court for over a year with, basically, the objective being to make the documents as stale as possible before I could get my mitts on them, and then they withdrew their appeal. It is a no-cost jurisdiction, so I could not do anything about it.

I eventually got the documents, and that was one of the first disclosures of these multi-storey blocks that were proposed for the Parklands between Parliament House and the Adelaide Festival Centre. As I say again, we are going to be fighting very hard to keep the Freedom of Information Act alive for when the government does not routinely publish planning information.

The second of the Aarhus principles is public participation in decision-making. I have mentioned already that the government says they only really want people to engage in discussion of planning policy. I am saying they need to be engaged at the development application stage as well. It is not either/or, it can be both.

In terms of access to justice, I will be pushing for increased rights for citizens to go to the umpire and get a second opinion on a whole range of planning matters, certainly merits appeals. By a merits appeal, I mean: does the development comply with the planning scheme? That is what merits appeals are about.

The nature of our system is, because so few development applications trigger an appeal right, decision-makers can make the worst decision possible, they can make terrible decisions, they can completely disregard the planning scheme, and they know nobody can do anything about it. It is a recipe for bad decision-making. As I said before, appeal rights are a silent sentinel for good decision-making. The fact that you can go to court, even though you probably will not in 99 per cent of cases, is what provides incentive to decision-makers to make good decisions that are consistent with planning policy.

I mentioned judicial review and civil enforcement as well. We need to remove the barriers to civil enforcement and undertakings as to costs and damages. The number of civil enforcement cases in the last 20 years you could count without taking your socks off. There have been very, very few such cases brought by third parties.

Major projects have been immune from legal challenge for a long time. In fact, worse than just immune from merits appeals, they have been immune from judicial review was well, so we will be having a close look at those provisions to make sure that major projects can be challenged when the government fails to comply with proper processes.

Another concern that the community has is in relation to the extended ministerial power. The minister assured us, as this process was underway in the last couple of years, that he would be giving up some powers and that these new bodies would be created. But one of the questions we have to ask is: how arm's length are these new bodies? I will come shortly to the Planning Commission, which ostensibly is at arm's length but, depending on how the government directs it, it can become a puppet of government.

The community is worried about the corrupting influence of big business and political donations, and I have mentioned that. I alluded to it in passing but said that I would come back to it. I talked about the famous Matt and Dave interview from about 2008. John Blunt, I think his name was, one of the project managers, I think, for the Makris corporation—I think I have got that right—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: No, CEO.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: The CEO of the Makris corporation: I am indebted to my colleague. He was asked by either Matt or Dave (I cannot remember who), 'Why do you give money to political parties? Why do you make these donations?' The answer was as blunt as the fellow's name. He said, 'We want our projects to happen. That's the way business works here.' It was the bluntest statement I have ever heard from a developer as to why they give money to political parties: they want their projects to happen; it is the way things work here. The community hears those sorts of things, and they have always known it, but here was someone actually saying it, and they want that fixed.

The community also lacks, I think, at a more general level, confidence in the integrity of the planning system, and planning policy in particular. They see the rules being broken with impunity and that raises the question whether, in planning policy, they are rules or guidelines. Most planners would say that they are guidelines but, when they are guidelines that are interpreted in such a loose manner that the final product is unrecognisable from the guidelines, is it any wonder that communities become discouraged and disillusioned?

The best case study I think has to be Unley Road, the increased densification of inner urban transport corridors, where the zone clearly said a five storey maximum—no more than five storeys. The very first application lodged under the new system applied for seven storeys and it got approved. The community looks at that and shake their heads and think. 'Why do we bother? Why do we even bother engaging with government and negotiating on planning policy when, the very first cab off the rank, they push the envelope and get away with it.' That is another one of these own goals. When the community sees that, they lack trust in planning policy and insist on having more of a role in development assessment, so they say, 'Forget planning policy. Give us appeal rights over every development.'

The community I think also is concerned about the impotence of parliament. I referred before to the parliamentary scrutiny provisions of the current Development Act. The new bill provides that parliament can be consulted earlier, but the fundamental problem with the system (the fact that there is a government-controlled gatekeeper between the community and the parliament) makes it unacceptable. In fact, during much of the last eight years, whilst encouraging people to come along to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, I have spent a lot of time on expectation management.

I have to say to them, 'You get a chance. You get on Hansard. You come along to the committee and have a say, but you know the parliament has never, ever rejected a development plan amendment, whether from a minister or anyone else.' It is disappointing for me to have to say that. I would love to say to people, 'Come along to parliament. You never know your luck. You might, through persuasive argument, convince the committee to recommend either changes or disallowance,' but I cannot do that: I am on expectation management.

When we look at the problems of the planning system through the eyes of local government, we see a few other issues that I have not actually touched on much until now but I think they are fairly critical, and they have certainly flavoured the Local Government Association's input to the bill and those of individual councils and councillors.

Councils do not appreciate being painted as the problem in the planning system. They do not accept that they are the problem. They do not accept that they are too untrustworthy and too incompetent to participate in development assessment. They do not appreciate the fact that their elected members are precluded from being on development assessment panels. In fact, under this bill, there are only two classes of people who are so untrustworthy and so incompetent as to be precluded from being on development assessment panels: elected local councillors is one, and state members of parliament is the other—so, we are in good company.

Local councils do not appreciate that they are often overridden by ministerial prerogative. If I had a dollar for every time, in the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, we have had a local government come along and tell us about the exhaustive process of consultation and research they have done to come up with appropriate planning policy for their area only to have the minister override it on a whim or, more often, override it on the back of lobbying from some big vested interest! They hate that. They know that they are the poor cousins in the system. They want to be treated with more respect.

I think that is at the heart of most of the local government concerns. The Hon. David Ridgway went through some of the submissions that had been received. I am not going to repeat the ones that he outlined, but—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: Hear, hear!

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: The Hon. Rob Lucas can see the size of my lever-arch file and he will no doubt urge me to read every submission that I have received, but there are hundreds upon hundreds of pages. I am not going to take the bait, and I will not be reading them all—as much as he would like me to—but I will start with the contribution of the Local Government Association.

I think it is fair to say that they have been very thorough and very diligent in analysing the legislation at the earliest possible opportunity. I have appreciated the time that they have spent with me to try to understand the consequences of the legislation. They came out very early with a spreadsheet showing all the clauses of the bill and all the amendments that they thought were necessary. I was pleased to see that a large chunk of those were accepted by the government in the lower house. Mind you, they plucked the low-hanging fruit. It is pretty simple just to write into the bill, 'And by the way, make sure you don't forget to consult local council.'

That has been incorporated into quite a few provisions, but that is a good thing. I do not want to demean it, but there are some more significant issues that are still outstanding. In fact, if we look at the LGA's formal submission to this bill, the first sentence of the executive summary says it all:

As drafted, the Bill significantly curtails the role of communities in the planning system and will not be supported by the LGA.

So, that is a pretty bald statement at the start of the executive summary—that the bill, as drafted, is unacceptable. I think that is probably similar to the Greens' position, that if the bill is not sufficiently amended we will not be supporting it.

The LGA, in their submission, point out, as I have, that the objects of the act are inadequate because they overemphasise the economic considerations at the expense of social and environmental. To quote the LGA's submission:

The State's environmental and social aspirations do not feature in the objects of the Act, creating the impression that they are not important considerations in the planning processes. The LGA believes that South Australian communities want a system that strikes a balance between competing demands for the use of land and this should be reflected in the objects of the Act.

The submission goes on for another 13 or so pages, and I will not refer anymore to that submission, but I will refer to the campaign that the Local Government Association has undertaken. I think it has been a very professional campaign. They have radio advertisements running on FIVEaa and, under the heading 'Keep planning local: have your say', they are using the slogan, 'No voice, no choice'.

I think they have done an excellent job in drawing attention to the fact that local councils are at the coalface in our cities, towns, suburbs and regions, and that they do need to be involved at a greater level in the planning system. In fact, they have actually gone to the trouble of putting out a myth-busting press release following an interview with minister John Rau on the Leon Byner show on 13 October.

They have put two pages out with what the minister said and what the facts of the situation are. The first myth-bust that they try to do is where the minister says that local councils have a poor track record of consistent decision-making. Again, you have a look at the statistics on a council-by-council basis and I think you will find that councils are not the problem. I will not go through the rest of the myth-busting.

The Hon. David Ridgway referred to two documents which are very recent. One of them is dated today from Wallmans Lawyers, who have been providing advice to the Local Government Association, and the other was some briefing notes from a meeting last Friday which the LGA held with planning minister John Rau. The Hon. David Ridgway read much of this into the Hansard, so I will not do it again, but the point is that as of, hour by hour, last Friday and again today, we still have stakeholders who still have serious concerns about the bill and are still wanting to engage in dialogue with members of parliament.

I say again what I said before: when we get to the end of the second reading of this bill, regardless of whether everyone's amendments are filed or not, I will be moving for the debate to be adjourned and for the committee stage to be undertaken next year. It will not be a question of whether all the amendments are in or not, because having the amendments in does not help with stakeholder consultation. We still have to talk to people in the community.

Just this afternoon, I think it was 4 o'clock (I haven't got the timestamp on it), we finally got the 70-something amendments from the government. Hopefully tomorrow, you will have 100 or more from me. You will have a handful from David Ridgway and, as I have said, I think Kelly Vincent, the Hon. John Darley, Family First—

The Hon. K.L. Vincent: Just a handful.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: A handful? But there are more to come. My point is, regardless of whether we have all the amendments tabled and filed by this week, it is still inappropriate for us to be dealing with this bill in committee next week. Like I said, I am not lazy: I am happy to come back to work next week. We can do other bills; we should not do this bill.

In terms of other submissions I have received, there is quite a wealth of material from the Local Government Association, but I will skip over that and I will go to just some of the councils, because I do want to also put on the record my thanks to those who have taken the trouble to write to me. These are in no particular order, but a former colleague of mine, Kris Hanna, the Mayor of the City of Marion, has written an extensive submission. Again, the key point they have made is there is a reduction in the role of local government in the planning process, and they are not happy.

It does not take rocket science. All of us have worked with people in local government. The majority of people who put their hand up to serve at the local level do so because they have a passion for their local area, and that includes the future development of their local area. It is the main reason most people get involved in planning. So, to rule these people out or to diminish their role I think is the wrong way to go. The City of Marion points out that there is a reduced role for local government. The council says:

'The Bill' appears to propose a reduction in the role of Councils in both development assessment and planning policy setting. We believe local government and the democratic representation it provides should be central to any new planning system.

They also bat not just for their own elected members; they bat for the community. They say that there will be less community involvement in development assessment. Again, to quote the council's submission:

Council acknowledges that a new Community Engagement Charter may well provide for meaningful engagement at the policy setting stage. However, this appears to be coming at the expense of engagement at the development assessment stage. It is our observation that the broader community does not interact with the planning system until it directly affects them as either an applicant or representor with direct interest in a specific development application.

He said in fewer words what I said in more words: people do not engage in planning policy, but you try to build a block of flats at the end of the street or a crematorium across the suburb or any other form of development and you will fill the town hall, because people will want to have their say. My thanks to the City of Marion.

The City of Onkaparinga have actually sent a very extensive submission, including a clause-by-clause breakdown of the bill. I should say, all of these submissions relate to the bill as introduced into the House of Assembly. Of course, the bill that we finally received (the one that I did not make the Clerk read out) last Friday was different, and I am still not sure whether it was 85 or 90 amendments that were made. So, councils went to a lot of trouble to tell us what was wrong and what we needed to fix. The letter from the Mayor of the City of Onkaparinga, Lorraine Rosenberg, states:

At the heart of our objection is Minister Rau's clear intent to remove local government from the planning system, which in turn denotes a loss of community influence and involvement in the management of their local places.

We believe that local government should be central to the success of a new planning system. We have the proven ability, processes and expertise to achieve this. We are best placed to understand our community and we always ensure that development policy reflects the character and culture of our places.

That is pretty straightforward, and those sentiments are reflected in other submissions. This submission is directed to all members of parliament, not just to me, and their plea with us is as follows, they say to members of parliament:

You are critical to the success of our communities in enabling them to have a voice on development proposals that will affect them. Together we need to stand up for our local communities and ensure that they continue to have the right to have a say on what is happening in their local community…It is essential that we work together on this crucial issue for our communities and we have developed information that will assist you in understanding the effect that this Bill will have on them.

I thank Lorraine Rosenberg and her staff for the comprehensive submission they have put in. I would also like to thank Bill Spragg, the Mayor of Adelaide Hills Council, for their detailed comprehensive submission with a spreadsheet. I will not go through all of the issues, but the themes are much the same: they are railing against what they call the denigration of the role of local government in the development assessment process. They say:

Our Council supports any changes to the planning and development system which will make the system operate simpler, better and faster. However, we have some significant concerns in relation to the essential principles and architecture of the reforms as outlined in the Bill...

Again, primarily the diminution of the local community role. The Barossa Council put in an extensive submission under the hand of the Mayor, Bob Sloane. I will not refer to that in detail, but it is very similar. The Yorke Peninsula Council forwarded to members of parliament their submission to the Local Government Association. Their concern is, as well as the ones raised already, around cost shifting between state and local government.

They also point out that the planning minister is gaining significant extra powers in relation to the planning process, but local councils will carry the burden of administration, finance and enforcement. We will deal with those issues when we come to some of the amendments. So, that is the Yorke Peninsula. The Adelaide City Council has a comprehensive submission. Lord Mayor Martin Haese states:

Council encourages reform that delivers efficiencies and benefits to business and the community but finds the lack of detail on the associated bodies of work and an implementation plan has made it difficult to reach a comprehensive position on the Bill.

This Bill is a significant piece of legislation that warrants careful, thoughtful and detailed consideration. The Council shares the opinion of other stakeholders in that there should be more time to fully consider the Bill before it progresses through parliament.

For this reason, Council calls on the State Government and members of Parliament to provide all stakeholders more time to fully consider the Bill before it progresses through parliament, particularly given the importance of the Bill and the long implementation phase of 3-5 years.

On the basis that the bill is before parliament they have provided some comments, but I think we need to heed their call. They have come to this conclusion a month after the bill was first tabled. What we have to remember is that these councils have access to considerable professional planning staff to provide them with advice. Members of parliament are not so lucky. I know that, certainly, members on the crossbench have struggled with some of the technical aspects of the bill. It is complicated stuff. If our premier local council, the Adelaide City Council, is saying that it is struggling with it, then I think we need to heed that advice and take our time.

The next local council is the City of Norwood, Payneham & St Peters. Again, it has put in a comprehensive submission. This is the council I mentioned also that had provided me with its statistics in relation to the developments it has approved in its municipality. For example, the number of development applications lodged usually number around the 1,000 mark. The value of those developments was $133.6 million in the last year. The proportion in a typical month is 221 approved, 10 refused. So, the councils are in the business of saying yes to reasonable development applications. The council in its letter to planning minister John Rau says:

The council considered the bill at its meeting on 6 October and generally welcomes the comprehensive review of South Australia's planning system and the overall aims of the bill. However, given that the bill represents the biggest overhaul of the planning system in more than 20 years, it is disappointing that key stakeholders in the planning system were not afforded sufficient time to review, understand and analyse the bill in detail.

The lack of a formal consultation process on the bill does not appear to meet the obligations of the state government's own reforming democracy policy statement released on 13 August 2015, in which the Premier stated, 'Our vision is for the government to make better decisions by bringing the voices of communities and stakeholders into the issues that are related to them.'

The council acknowledges that the bill is reflective of the state government's proposed reform agenda, and that the legislation provides a framework that is intended to provide a planning and development system which is easier to administer than the current system. However, the introduction of the bill into parliament without the supporting regulations and the planning and design code, which are integral to achieving the aims of the bill, means that it's not possible to provide meaningful comments on many aspects of the bill at this time.

I could go on as they have said more about community engagement, but you get the idea. Councils dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of development applications, need more time to fully comprehend the provisions of the bill.

Mid Murray council put in a lengthy submission as well, which I will not refer to, but I thank Geoff Parsons, the Manager of Development Services, for sending that through. The City of West Torrens, Declan Moore, Deputy Chief Executive, made a detailed submission, and again very similar issues as raised by other councils, in particular the diminished role of local government. The Limestone Coast Local Government Association has written to us as follows:

The Limestone Coast Local Government Association is concerned that the timing of the debate on the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Bill provides very little opportunity for local government and the community to provide meaningful input into any discussion.

I am labouring the point, I guess, but here we have the biggest bill before parliament this year, the most complex bill, and I hope the government will see reason, but at present they are talking about pushing this through committee in the optional sitting week and, like I said, I will oppose that move, regardless of whether all the amendments have been lodged. In fact, once all the amendments are in, then we can start talking to local councils and other stakeholders about that.

I thank Berri Barmera council for its submission. The District Council of the Copper Coast has put in a submission. Then I come to the submissions that were made by community groups. In particular I have very much appreciated the support and advice I have been given by the Environmental Defenders Office. They have put forward a number of submissions. To declare my interest: as members know, I was the solicitor at the Environmental Defenders Office for 10 years, and I am a life member of the EDO and I value their input.

They are just biding time at the moment until a change of government at the federal level and until Legal Aid funding is reinstated. But they are not going anywhere; they are just doing it all on a shoestring at the moment. They have put quite an extensive submission forward. I will not go through it in detail now because it is largely technical in nature, but I will refer to that material when we do the committee debate in February next year.

I mentioned the Community Alliance, and there were a number of representatives in the gallery earlier today. They have put a detailed submission in and they have engaged the minister with this process the whole way through. They engaged Mr Brian Hayes the whole way through. They cannot be accused of having fudged their engagement, yet very little of what they have said has found its way into the legislation.

So I will be pushing amendments next year that are built around the two or three years that I have been working with this group and the various concerns that are born out of real life experiences such as the ones that I outlined at some length earlier. I will be working with the Community Alliance and I would urge members of the opposition and others to take heed of what they say as well.

One of their member groups, the Prospect Residents Association, have put in a submission, and again they are concerned about elected members being removed from development assessment panels. They are worried about the planning minister having too much control and they are worried about the emphasis on fast tracking approvals, which they say, and I agree, will lead to inappropriate developments being approved. They are concerned about the lack of consideration of social and environmental goals, similar to other groups.

The Friends of the City of Unley Society put a detailed submission in, and they make the point—and I think the Hon. David Ridgway might have made the same point as well—that this bill extends to well beyond the recommendations that were made by the expert panel, gives far more power to the minister than was envisaged and, if this bill passes in its current form, will result in a sense of community disenfranchisement and will not assist in addressing social needs and objectives. The Friends of Willunga Basin have written to me and, like a lot of groups, they are saying that they appreciate that after 22 years it is time to review the planning system but, as they say:

We believe there are elements of the bill which push the envelope too far and which are not favourable or desirable from a community standpoint. They remind us that being a developer per se neither bestows great wisdom in all the circumstances nor guarantees good design or good taste and that the community has to live with the consequences of bad design and bad planning decisions for a generation or more.

They make the point that 'The broader community has a right to be involved in, and have input into, decisions which have long-term effects on matters of local interest and concern'—Geoff Hayter, Chair of Friends of Willunga Basin. I think in terms of the community submissions, that is all I will refer to.

I mentioned earlier that I have spent some time recently with the Urban Development Institute, the Housing Industry Association and the Property Council. I also have a detailed submission from the Master Builders Association, the group that was actively tweeting from the public gallery earlier in the day. Good on them for engaging in parliamentary debate.

The Hon. David Ridgway went through those submissions in some detail so I do not need to, but I just make the point, as I said earlier on: why is the government rushing this bill? Which stakeholders are urging them to rush it through this week or next? None of them. Not these industry groups and developer lobbies; they are not urging the bill to be rushed through. The community groups certainly aren't and local government certainly isn't.

I do not know whether the Hon. David Ridgway has some inside knowledge that the planning minister is not long for his portfolio and needs this chalked on his belt before he retires. It is not a rumour I have heard and the advisers are looking bemused, so they have not heard it either. The government has still not put any justification forward other than they are sick of talking about it and they want it passed. If that is the only justification, it is not good enough and I am not going to accept it.

The final thing that I want to do in the brief time allocated to me is to talk about some of the amendments. I am not in any position to talk about the government amendments that we have had for an hour or so, but I can at least give some indication of the types of amendments that I will be moving. he fact that I have to shuffle so many papers around shows that a forest of trees has gone into this bill and we need to repay the environment by getting a good bill.

Parliamentary counsel is currently working on my table of amendments. I will not go through the 15 pages of the amendments in this spreadsheet, but I will go through some of the key ones that I am keen to see addressed. One of them is perhaps a curious one, but it goes to the heart of the matter in terms of the definition of 'development'. There is a legal dispute underway at the moment between a bricks and mortar greengrocer shop and a so-called farmers' market. The greengrocer says that the farmers' market stalls are all shops and that a collection of farmers' market stalls is a shopping centre and, therefore, they need to get planning approval.

I will declare an interest as a member of the Adelaide Showground Farmers' Market. I am a big fan of farmers' markets. I think anything that can help break the Coles and Woolworths duopoly is a good thing. We need more diversity and we need more competition, but I think we also need to have a good look at the definition of 'development' to make sure that temporary structures such as the farmers' market in the car park of the Old Spot Hotel does not actually infringe the Development Act. That is just a simple one to have a look at.

The bill does recognise, in clause 11, some special legislative schemes. We need to make sure that the Adelaide Park Lands Act is one of those legislative schemes. It was basically a scheme designed to protect the Parklands from the misuse of the Development Act. Back in clause 4, the concept of change of use of land is being modified. We need to make sure that this concept of use class is not used to basically allow significant changes to take place that impact on communities without it having to go back through an assessment process.

The government would say that is exactly what they are trying to achieve, but you only have to think about it. You might have something that is a shop, and there are some shops where you would have hundreds of customers at all hours of the day and night and you have other shops where you get three customers a day. They are all shops, but they have very different impacts. I am concerned that the government tinkering with the change of use rules could result in communities being subjected to significantly different impacts without the development having to go through a proper process.

I mentioned the objects of the act. I want to put the environmental and social considerations back in there. Call me old fashioned, but 'ecologically sustainable development' still works for me. They might be the form of words that we need. The State Planning Commission in clause 17 is supposedly at arm's length from the minister, but there is a curious provision in there which says that the planning commission is obliged to take into account a particular government policy or a particular principle or matter specified by the minister. To me, that says, in the wrong hands, the minister can dictate what they need to do. The minister just needs to develop policy or principles and then oblige the State Planning Commission to take them into account. I do not think they are sufficiently arm's length. No doubt, when I have my briefing with the minister's staff on Friday, they will tell me why I am wrong, but I am not sure I am.

When it comes to the citizens' participation charter, like I said, this has the potential to be quite good, with the main proviso that it is completely inadequate, in that it is focusing on engagement in policy and ignoring engagement in development assessment. However, there are a couple of other principles additional to the ones that are there. It says that 'members of the community should have reasonable, meaningful and ongoing opportunities to participate in relevant planning'. There are some extra principles in there: 'timely' I think is one. Simple word: 'timely'. Think about it. I mentioned the situation with the Mayfield development where the public consultation was two weeks after the final decision had been made. That is hardly timely.

The other thing I would like to incorporate into that is that this idea of participation also needs to incorporate access to information, because there is not much point participating in something if you have been denied key access. There is a range of new principles we could put in there, and one principle that I have always subscribed to is that if you are genuine about community engagement then members of the community should have access to the same information that the decision-maker has.

I do not know about other members of parliament, but I have certainly presented at various bodies and one, I remember, was the Native Vegetation Council. I knew they had a report in front of them but they would not tell me what was in it, and I said, 'Look, my ability to meaningfully participate depends on me knowing what's in that report.' They said, 'No, we're not going to tell you what is in the report. Tell us what you think.' Given that the report was a technical ecologist's report, it was very difficult for me to actually engage. So members of the public should have access to the same information as decision-makers.

I mentioned earlier that the emphasis must be on routine publishing of the information, not requiring people to go to lengths to obtain it for themselves. In other words, put it out there, put it on the portal, put it on the website. In relation to that, I think some legislation, in the earlier days of the interwebs, had this notion that people would be charged for online information. Certainly, particular newspapers—and The Australian springs to mind—like to charge after you have read your first, I think, three articles. We need to make sure that this online planning portal is free; I am happy to accept payment on a cost recovery basis for hard copies or for discs, but online should always be free.

The provision in the Citizen Engagement Charter that talks about community engagement should be weighted towards engagement at an early stage and scaled back when dealing with settled or advanced policy—delete that. Cross that out. It is the wrong policy approach. Similarly, delete the provision in clause 44 that provides that the charter must not relate to the assessment of development applications. I think it should relate to both. In terms of the preparation of the charter, under this new model there are various planning documents that will be subject, notionally, to disallowance by the gatekeeper, being the ERD committee. I want to make sure that the charter is included in those documents and, as I said earlier, I want to bypass the ERD committee as well.

I mentioned the planning portal, and I think that is quite exciting. I like the idea of the routine publishing of planning information. I hate having to front at the counter and argue with counter staff about my right to look at documents; it is almost mediaeval, the way they do that. We need to make sure that provisions that enable the minister to prohibit or restrict information are not abused. Currently, under clause 52 all the minister has to do is put something on the Government Gazette saying that certain information is prohibited, restricted or limited. He does not have to give reasons, and I think that power needs to be constrained. I mentioned that clause 53, the Freedom of Information Act, needs to be written back in rather than removed.

There are a couple of principles that I think are quite important. They are all important, but the one I really want to spend just a bit of time talking about—I have done parliamentary scrutiny, and early commencement, which is the new name for interim operation, I have mentioned already—the one that I think is really fundamental, is clause 95. This goes to the heart of the matter because, as I said before, you have two elements in this planning regime: you have planning policy, and then you have individual development decisions, and the link between them is that the decision about an individual development application should, in some measure, be consistent with the planning policy.

The words that have been used for the last 22 years are that a development should not be approved if it is 'seriously at variance' with the planning scheme. Those have been the words: 'seriously at variance'. Sometimes those words have worked well and sometimes they have been a complete failure. Ask the people of Unley Road whether a seven-storey building is 'seriously at variance' with a maximum of five storeys and they will tell you that it is. Could they do anything about it? No, because they were denied the right to appeal because it was a category 2, which meant no appeals. Let's look at what the government has got in the bill at present. They have done away with the 'seriously at variance' test and the new test is:

…the development is assessed as being appropriate after taking into account—

(i) the relevant provisions of the Planning Rules;

I will just say that again:

…the development is assessed as being appropriate after taking into account—

(i) the relevant provisions of the Planning Rules;

That is far weaker than the 'seriously at variance' test. All the development has to be is 'appropriate'. There is no rigour in that at all and the planning rules just have to be taken into account. They do not have to be followed.

I have to say that whilst there is one part of me which is very sympathetic to a flexible outcome-driven planning system of assessment, performance based, the fact that it has been abused so badly over the years says, 'Bring back black-letter law. Bring back a law that says that five means five, that 10 metres means 10 metres and does not mean 15 metres.'

That is what the community is now clamouring for. They want black-letter law written back into the planning system. The planners do not necessarily like that because they want flexibility to be able to approve innovative solutions to complex problems, but the community has been ripped off so often that they want to go back to black-letter law. We do need to have a look at the language and at whether these planning rules are rules at all, or are they guidelines or are they just vague things to be taken into account and potentially ignored.

My current solution is that the words 'seriously at variance' should be modified and the new words should be 'at variance'. Anything 'at variance' with the planning scheme should not be approved. That is a tougher standard. It means that when you write 'five storeys' into a planning scheme, it damn well means five storeys; it does not mean seven or eight or nine. We know that developers are going to push the envelope.

Maybe—and this is why we need more time to consult on amendments—the deal is that five storeys go through as a complying-type of development and any pushing of the envelope goes to full public consultation and appeal rights. Maybe that is the solution: anything that exceeds the parameters automatically is the equivalent of what is now category 3 appeal rights. Maybe that is the solution. I am happy to talk about that with the government, but at present my current solution is to replace the word 'appropriate', as that is too weak, and go back to the 'seriously at variance' test but drop off the word 'seriously'.

There are various other amendments as well, and I pointed out earlier that I have reprised all the old bills I have introduced over the years and incorporated them as well. I know parliamentary counsel is working hard. They are working into the night on the amendments but, as I say, even if I do manage to get all my amendments finalised by tomorrow or the next day, I am still going to insist on this bill being deferred. I think it is an insult to the Legislative Council.

As I pointed out, every stakeholder is on our side, and if minister Rau wants to have a media war about the upper house obstructing government legislation I can tell him where the hearts and minds are going to be. He is not going to win that one. He has everyone out there against him, not wanting this bill rushed through at this stage. As I have said, it is the most important bill we are dealing with this year, and we have a great opportunity to get a good planning system in place.

I am supportive of rewriting the 22-year-old Development Act, but I do not want to replace it with something worse. I am in the hands of the chamber as to how we proceed. My feeling is that it will be a far more constructive debate if we do it properly next year, and I certainly hope that the government will see reason. I hope that the opposition—who have previously indicated that they were similarly inclined to leave this to next year—stick by their guns as well and that we do not see an unholy rush during this optional sitting week, which is guaranteed to make mistakes and, as I said, guaranteed to not get a final bill anyway because we will be passing amendments, there are potentially going to be deadlocks, and there is no way that this is going to be done and dusted. One final thing I will say is that—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: Hear, hear!

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: I can say more if the Hon. Rob Lucas wants. The minister's staffers have sent a note through and pointed out to us that another bill is on its way in the new year. To quote from the email:

For your information please also note that the department continue to compile a set of minor/technical miscellaneous amendments to the bill, which amendments the minister has foreshadowed may be moved during a further necessary implementation bill in the new year.

I am thinking that we had all those amendments in the lower house, we have just had 72 or whatever it is in the upper house and the department is admitting that there are still things that it has not got right and they are going to have to have a further necessary implementation bill in the new year. My invitation to the government is, 'Don't bother with that. Let's get this bill right. Let's get it right over summer and let's come back in February,' and I look forward to the committee stage of the debate then.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (21:00): I will speak briefly this evening to the second reading of this bill and indicate that I appreciate the government briefing provided to my office on 23 September, I believe it was, and the additional briefing by Mr Chris Kwong and Mr Matthew Loader to my staff last week.

Before I go any further, there are several people I would like to thank. I particularly thank parliamentary counsel for drafting the many amendments we have before us (Dignity for Disability's included, which I will talk about shortly) and all the staff who have worked very hard on this very lengthy and very detailed bill. I would also like to thank the other staff who are assisting not only with this bill but with the general running of parliament. The reason I want to do this is that I was reminded of how we members are not the only ones who make sacrifices by sitting into the evening to discuss these important and lengthy issues.

Of course, we have Hansard here fulfilling a very important role and creating a public record of everything that is said, but the reason I want to mention this specifically is that during the dinner break I wandered into the library, as I am known to do, and got talking to Bianca, one of the research librarians. Tonight is the first night ever that Bianca has not been home to say goodnight to her two and four-year-old children. So I would like to put on the record my thanks to all the staff who have worked very hard on this bill and who keep parliament running to make sure that we can give these important issues the consideration they deserve.

This is certainly the most significant piece of legislation considered by this parliament this year, particularly in terms of length. Although other issues, such as improving the justice system for all people, including people with disabilities, have been a very important priority for Dignity for Disability, we are certainly keen to give this adequate consideration. As the key plank of a year-long process of planning law reform, this bill demands careful and detailed consideration in this place.

It is clear from the number and variety of organisations and interest groups that have lobbied my office, and certainly other offices as well—we have heard a number of them mentioned by the Hon. Mr Parnell—that it has prompted a range of concerns. I would like to place on the record some of the concerned people and organisations who have taken the time to contact me. They include:

Frank and Margaret Hardbottle;

Alex and Kim Paschero;

Jennifer Comley;

Dr Jonathan Deakin;

Kristina Barnett; and

Graham Webster.

Also, the following residents groups:

The Community Alliance South Australia;

Friends of the City of Unley Society;

Prospect Residents Association;

Local government;

The City of Adelaide;

The City of Marion;

The City of Norwood, Payneham & St Peters;

The City of Onkaparinga;

The City of West Torrens; and

The Local Government Association of South Australia.

I also thank the property development peak bodies:

Master Builders South Australia;

Property Council of South Australia; and

The Urban Development Institute of Australia SA Branch.

Members of my staff also met with Community Alliance's Carolyn Wigg and Tom Matthews, and a staff member also represented me at the forum organised by Community Alliance, which was held at the Burnside Town Hall on 21 October. I do apologise that I was not able to be there, but I am very thankful to my staff for representing me, so that I could hear about the concerns raised at what I understand was a very active and important meeting.

I understand, of course, that the planning minister and Deputy Premier John Rau, shadow planning minister Griffiths and the Hon. Mr Parnell also spoke at that event. With the exception of the planning minister, I understand that the all of these people and organisations I have mentioned have advised me that they do not support all of this bill or some of it in its current form.

To summarise, community representatives are certainly worried that the effect of the bill would be to exclude residents and councillors from the planning approval process, and developers are worried about limits to urban growth and the impact of the proposed infrastructure delivery scheme. I am certainly carefully considering each of the concerns raised. In addition to acknowledging the range of concerns received, I say that this bill in its current form is missing out on several opportunities, not least of which is the opportunity to give prominence to the principle of universal design, also known as universal accessibility or accessibility for all.

I stressed the importance of universal design in my submission on behalf of Dignity for Disability in our submission to the Expert Panel on Planning Reform in February of this year. In that submission we cited the National Disability Strategy to which South Australia is of course a signatory. It specifically refers to universal design in chapter 1 on inclusive and accessible communities. In addition, as members would know, if not from their own background then from my repeated contributions in this place on the subject, that Australia is also of course party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which defines universal design as:

…the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. 'Universal design' shall not exclude assistive devices for particular groups of persons with disabilities where this is needed.

Members may recall that in 2012 I had the great privilege to have the opportunity to visit Norway, where universal design was first introduced as a planning concept, as I understand it, in 1997. For the record, just to be blunt and to illustrate how far behind South Australia is on the topic of universal design, in 1997 I was nine years old; in fact, universal design principles are incorporated into the objects clause and a number of provisions of Norway's Planning and Building Act 2008, as I understand the title is translated.

When I was in Oslo, I visited the Norwegian national parliament, which happened to be undergoing a major building renovation. This may sound familiar to members, because it was around the same time that this same parliament was having some renovations done of its own. However, there was a stark difference in my experience of visiting the Norwegian parliament while it was being renovated. It starkly contrasted to my experience of visiting this very parliament of which I am a member, because, notwithstanding the disruption of the renovations, I and any other wheelchair or mobility aid user, parent with a pram, elderly person on a walker, and so on, entered the building through the same door as everyone else.

When I mentioned to people in that parliament, when I was visiting—either staff members or members of parliament I spoke to, or even just tourists and visitors to the parliament—that currently in my own workplace, the Parliament of South Australia, I was entering through the basement car park, they quite frankly could not believe that to be true and certainly could not believe that they would accept that in their country where universal design is now in legislation as a beneficial planning concept.

Not to minimise the fact that we have come a long way with design in this building—and I certainly do not want to downplay the hard work that has been done there—I think this one relatively simple example shows that still we have a long way to go, not just in this parliament but in the entire state.

I understand that the Norwegian government has an action plan for Norway to be entirely universally designed by 2025, and given that many cities in Norway are some hundreds of years older than our dear old Adelaide, I think it is time that we stopped using the excuse that Adelaide is just an old city and that is the way things are.

Universal design is particularly important not only from a perspective of enabling social inclusion, but also for the economy. Ireland has, in recent years, renewed its entire public bus fleet, making, as I understand it, all buses accessible to mobility aid users, elderly people, parents with prams and so on, by ensuring that all buses have the ability to 'kneel', so to speak, lower to kerb level to allow easier entry as there is no step to get over.

I understand that the nation of Ireland and the government of Ireland underwent this replacement of its entire bus fleet in the midst of the global financial crisis, which is generally a time during which one might not have expected to see these types of large projects undertaken. But Ireland did and they did it because they recognise, as Australia and the state of South Australia should, that universal design is good sense and an investment in the future of the state and the nation.

I understand that it worked out to be cheaper in the long run to replace the entire bus fleet, as I understand it worked out to be less expensive to deal with a single contractor providing all the buses, rather than several contractors providing different buses for different fleets.

By removing environmental barriers such as steps, narrow doorways and so on, universal design makes it easier for people with disabilities to become consumers of goods and services and to find employment opportunities. Of course, it makes sense that if we are able to enter your business or your store, you are more likely to get us as customers and therefore have us spending our money there.

This is certainly one of the reasons that Dignity for Disability was very disheartened and quite vocal about the Adelaide City Council shopfront renewal scheme earlier in the year—I forget the exact title, but I think members know what I am referring to. Although it did have some provisions for accessibility, what was promoted in terms of the glossy brochures and the front pages of the brochure and so on was the ability to give your shop a fresh lick of paint or get some funky and relatively uncomfortable hipster chairs in there.

All these things are very welcome, of course; we want to keep our shops updated and nice looking, but I think there is also a strong argument to make that one can only enjoy that fresh lick of paint if one can actually get in the door. Certainly, when I took that perspective to the media on behalf of Dignity for Disability, I was contacted with supporting comments not only from people with disabilities but also from parents whose young children still use a pram and who said that they felt I was speaking directly for them and about their experience when we took that perspective.

I think that we do need to stop seeing this as something that is an 'us and them' issue. I am very frustrated when in 2015 I still hear disability talked about using the term 'special needs', because 20 per cent of the population currently has a disability, plus those who will acquire it through the ageing process or surviving accident or injury, plus parents with prams, and people with—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Sports injuries.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: —sports injuries (thank you, Mr Wade), a variety of health conditions, temporary injuries and so on. It becomes less and less 'special' and more about all of us.

I would like to read a short quote from an article entitled 'Should business care about universal design?' which was written by Lee Wilson and published just today, I understand, on architecture, design and construction site, sourceable.net. The quote reads thus:

The Australian Network on Disability (AND) identified the opportunity this emerging market presented. AND believes corporate social responsibility is an important contributor to the success of long-term business, and that it should be viewed in a strategic business sense rather than simply being a 'feel-good' factor.

AND adds that people with disability 'show commitment and loyalty that is unsurpassed,' which surely is a market worth catering for. People with disability represent close to 20 per cent of the Australian population and one in three people either have a disability or are likely to be close to someone with a disability.

In terms of the ageing population, 20 per cent of the population will be over 65 years of age by 2030. This proportion of society could have a significant impact on how successful a business is, both now and into the future. They spend like everyone else, and universal design (or how suitable, adaptable or usable a 'thing' is) will increasingly become a factor in a person's decision making process.

So when we ask 'should businesses care about universal design?' I believe the answer is an unequivocal 'yes, they can't afford not to.'

Dignity for Disability would also argue that there is a strong cost saving to be made in building accessibility for all people into public spaces inherently, that is, during the planning process, rather than as an afterthought. To demonstrate this, I would like to quote from the federal government's. Accessibility Design Guide: Universal design principles for Australia's aid program. This is from section 3.6 of this document, Accessibility Design Guide, titled 'Cost of not incorporating universal design' and the quote reads thus:

The cost of not incorporating universal design can be significant. Inaccessible environments limit economic education, health, social and other opportunities for people with disability, and make them more dependent on others.

It is important to consider the following three components when working with universal design. Each component can affect the economic viability of family units and contribute to a cycle of poverty:

direct costs for people with disability, including access to services such as travel;

indirect costs to support persons and/or family members of people with disability; and

opportunity costs of forgone income for people with disability.

Again, universal design is not only about allowing us to get into businesses and to venues to spend money, but about enabling us to get into the workforce to actually get that money to spend. I believe, certainly, that the inaccessibility of the workforce is a major barrier to people with disabilities entering it. We know that fewer people who are identified as having disabilities are employed in the public sector than there were 20 years ago, and Dignity for Disability certainly believes that the attitudinal barriers which lead to the material barriers are a significant contributor to this.

I am often, if not constantly, frustrated by what I have termed, perhaps not so endearingly, the cycle of inaccessibility where we do not make a business or a venue accessible, so people with those needs do not come. As a result of them not presenting at the venue, we do not see the need to change it, so we do not make it accessible and we go back to the first point in the cycle.

There is also an argument, of course, that building these things into the plan saves money because not only can retrofitting be expensive when access is an afterthought but also it does not necessarily deliver the best results. If members need any further proof of this, I suggest they hop onto Google and enter the search terms 'epic ramp fail' or 'epic accessibility fail', an 'epic fail' of course being the internet term for when someone fails spectacularly badly at something.

There used to be, or they may well still be, an entire blog called 'Epic ramp fail', but I have not been able to drag it up today. Anyway, if you enter those search terms 'epic ramp fail' or 'epic accessibility fail', you will certainly find some doozies. Looking at them, I am never sure whether to laugh or cry. I will just do my best to describe a couple of them. I am not very good at visual description, but bear with me, Hansard.

Just so you get an idea, the examples include, but are sadly not limited to, ramps with two steps leading up to them, or a ramp with three steps at the end of it, or an accessible car park which, while technically is the appropriate width for an accessible car park, has a pillar in the middle of it so that you could probably barely open your car door if you parked there, much less have enough space to get out a walker or a wheelchair.

A personal favourite of mine, which I have had the great misfortune of seeing several times in the flesh, so to speak, rather than just on Google, is a sign out the front of a building reading, quote, 'Wheelchair ramp available: inquire within'. Some members might not get that immediately, but just sit with it for a moment and let it sink in. I am sure the realisation will wash over you shortly.

This is exactly what happens when we do not consider accessibility as an imperative from both a social and economic perspective. As a society, as that earlier quote I read out said, we cannot afford not to do this. We have an ageing population. We have more people surviving accidents, thanks to advancements in medical technology, who are acquiring and living with disabilities long into the future as a result, so we need to get this right and we need to invest in South Australia's social and economic future now. Universal design is one way of doing that very strongly, and the Norwegian experience shows us that it can and must be done.

Moving on for a while, part 2 of the bill relates to its objects, planning principles and general responsibilities. One of the high-quality design principles states, inter alia, that the public realm should be designed to be accessible. Dignity for Disability certainly has no argument with that principle, but we would argue that it does not nearly go far enough, given those arguments I have just made about universal design.

In a bill of some 84,000 words, one mention of accessible public spaces—that is, accessible to all people, not just those who have those needs now but who will in the future—does not give significant weight to this principle and this need and the benefits of it. It is certainly not enough to change the mindset of planners, providers and assessors of our built environment, and this is why Dignity for Disability is working on a small handful of amendments, in comparison to the—are you up to 84, Mr Parnell?

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: I have lost count.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: The Hon. Mr Parnell says he has lost count, and to an extent you can't blame him. We have only a small handful of amendments in comparison to the 70 or 80 that we already have before us, but we think they are, nonetheless, very important in enshrining, in this bill, an opportunity for South Australia to play catch-up and then, hopefully, lead the way for the rest of the nation in the adoption of universal design. I understand that those amendments are still being circulated. We are still reaching some compromise with the wording, so I apologise that we do not have them before members at this stage, but we will very shortly, and I thank them for their patience.

My experience tells me that the current reliance on the minimum requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, now incorporated into the Building Code of Australia, is not enough to ensure that buildings and public spaces are genuinely and generally accessible to people of all abilities and needs. In conversations with people responsible for a particular building entry or bathroom that is not quite accessible for someone who uses a wheelchair, I and my staff often hear the response (as do many people in the disability community), 'But we have met the requirements of the code.'

In other words, designers and builders are being judged on whether certain parts of their building or infrastructure have certain dimensions rather than whether people with disabilities, older people or parents with strollers, for example, can actually enter and use the shop in an autonomous and dignified self-directed way. The design of accessible buildings, therefore, tends to be done to the lowest common denominator rather than aspiring to excellence.

As another example of this, I will quickly share this story. Many hotels I stay in have accessible rooms and they may well be accessible in terms of handrails and things like that, but there is nothing necessarily in the Building Code that says perhaps if this is a wheelchair-accessible room you should put the control panel for the air conditioner where someone in a seated position can actually reach it, or put the cups so that a person with a disability can get a glass of water without having to go down to the lobby and ask someone to come up to their room and get a glass down for them.

I had a recent experience in Canberra, probably a few months ago now. I tend to think of everything that was not yesterday as last week because the year is slipping away from us. I was presenting at a forum on access to the justice system for people with disabilities and talking about the work that Dignity for Disability and this parliament as a whole has done. Everything was good, and I got on the handrails and jumped in the shower, and then realised that I could not actually reach the tap from the shower bench because it was certainly beyond my arm length. I do not have the longest arms in the world but, certainly, I can imagine it would have been very difficult for anyone, particularly because you cannot necessarily just get up and walk over to the tap because, call me crazy, but I tend not to take my wheelchair into the shower.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: It's hard to ring room service from there, too.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: As the Hon. Ms Gago interjects, it is hard to order room service from there, too.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: From the shower.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: From the shower, yes. Fortunately, I did work out a solution, but the point I am making is we should be creating a society where these things are a matter of course. I do not want to hit members over the head with the point but I think that we need to look at this from a tourism perspective as well, and this is certainly something that Dignity for Disability is in conversation with the tourism minister in the other place about, in terms of the economic benefits of promoting South Australia as a tourist destination for all people, particularly people who may be older and travelling post retirement.

Again, it can be done and it does bring results. As I said, when I was travelling in Scandinavia, I visited a particular chain of hotels and chose those hotels because they had a specific disability liaison officer whom you could talk with if you had any concerns. You could certainly tell that that was leading to excellent results because not only was I able to get a glass of water, reach the microwave, get in and out of bed, get in and out of the shower and not have to order my room service from there because I got stuck but they also had things like vibrating alarm clocks for people who had either been deaf all their life or had lost hearing, particularly, I suppose through ageing. There are many examples of where this can be beneficial to many people, rather than those who are crudely and inaccurately termed as having special needs.

Perhaps this legislation offers a chance to introduce a public interest test for genuine accessibility that is integrated into good design of our buildings and the public realm. To this end, accessibility should be given the same prominence in this bill as its existing objects and its planning principles under the headings of: long-term focus; urban renewal; high quality design; activation and liveability; sustainability; investment facilitation; and integrated delivery.

As another example of the need for high quality design and liveability of public spaces—and I did say that I would not hit members over the head, but unfortunately there are many examples I can give as to where South Australia is falling behind on the benefits of accessibility—members may recall that 19 November this year (as it is every year, I understand) was World Toilet Day. Generally, the United Nations uses this designated day to promote the fact that millions, if not billions, of people all over the world do not have adequate access to sanitation facilities, including toilets.

It was wrongly labelled in the media a couple of times as 'public toilet day', which is not accurate, because it is actually trying to promote the fact that many people in many countries do not even have access to a toilet, let alone a public one. But, anyway, on this occasion Dignity for Disability used World Toilet Day in the South Australian context to highlight in the media the needs of the 14,000 South Australian adults who require some form of assistance—be it assistance in a material way through the provision of a larger space, handrails and so on, or assistance from another person, or a mixture of the two—to use the bathroom.

Dignity for Disability promotes the provision of Changing Places, which are bathrooms equipped for adults who need such assistance, as well as younger people. To put it somewhat crudely just to help members to understand, Changing Places are basically a current accessible bathroom, with the handrails and so on, on steroids. So, it has all the same features, such as the extra space and the handrails, but it also has some additional features, including a hoist (so that if somebody needs a hoist to get on and off the toilet, they can use that) but also, I think most interestingly, an adult-sized change table.

I think many people either do not know or forget that there are people who are beyond the age and size of an infant who still require change tables to autonomously and in a dignified manner access the public realm. Currently, none of these Changing Places facilities exist in South Australia, while Victoria has several, and there is even one in Darwin.

As an illustrator of the effect of not having these facilities, Dignity for Disability is in regular contact with constituents who either feel extremely limited in the number of venues they are able to visit and spend their money at, or they are forced to change on the floor of a public toilet. I hope I do not have to explain to members why that is a concern.

I know that the Adelaide City Council in particular is keen to take up Dignity for Disability's proposals in getting a Changing Places—hopefully several—in South Australia, and I certainly thank them for that. But, I raise it again in this place because we still have a long way to go.

Universal design should also be given equal weight as the other considerations for the various planning instruments provided in this bill—in particular, the foreshadowed design quality policy, the planning and design code, and design standards. I note that, within the bill's provisions for the proposed planning and design code, local heritage and significant trees are each considered worthy of a clause. The planning minister and his staff have argued that the objective of universal design does not merit inclusion in this bill as it can be dealt with in one or more subsidiary planning instruments.

I respectfully submit that in promoting universal design—that is, the design of buildings and public spaces to be accessible to all our citizens as well as friends, family—there is evidence to suggest that the average person with a disability travels in a group of between two and eight people, so it is not only about us; it is about our friends, our family and the interstate and perhaps even international visitors we may and will bring with us. I respectfully submit that this group is at least as worthy of consideration as the conservation of our local heritage or the safeguarding of our significant trees.

Call me naive, and tell me I do not understand heritage, but from my perspective, to an extent, providing for greater accessibility is about respecting the heritage of existing venues in the state because it gives them a future and enables more and more people in the future to go into that place, be it a museum, be it Ayers House, or be it this very parliament, which has undergone significant changes in recent times. I like to think that that is a way of honouring this parliament because it has given it a future. It has given it the opportunity to be more diverse and more reflective of South Australia as a result. Call me crazy, but I think that should be the job of this parliament and/or others now and long into the future.

That said, Dignity for Disability will support the second reading of this bill and looks forward to the committee stage of debate. As I indicated earlier, we have drafted some amendments which are still being negotiated upon. We are also currently carefully considering the many amendments we have before us and do hope, as was illustrated by the Hon. Mark Parnell, that this parliament will be given adequate time to give this important issue the consideration it deserves.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.A. Kandelaars.

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