Good Morning ladies and gentlemen. I'm Michael Parkinson, the Chairman of the Cumberland Group. I'd like to welcome you to the 11th Annual Development Seminar. The past year has been a challenging one for all associated with the development industry with the roller coaster ride with the introduction of the GST and changes to legislation governing the process.

Today we'll be hearing from some of the top people in these areas, talking about some of these changes. Combined with this seminar is the official launch of the Cumberland Group website, www.cumberlandgroup.com.au - you'll see that printed on the pens and rules you were given this morning. The website is designed to be a free resource that will have increasing amounts of information for surveyors, free downloads, information on our forthcoming meetings and seminars and information for students and candidates for the board.

Just before we kick off I'd like to ask everyone if they could check their mobiles are switched off so it doesn't disturb the seminar. The seminar will be divided up into four sessions, after session one we'll have morning tea, following session two lunch, lunch will be held in the marquee on the tennis courts but I'll give you a few more details on that before we break for lunch. At the end of the Seminar we'll have our happy hour so make sure you stay around for that.

I'd like to call upon Mr Des Mooney, the General Manager of LPI to open the seminar for us could you all please welcome him.

Des Mooney - General Manager LPI

Good morning and thank you very much. Look, the first thing I'd like to do is really to thank the Cumberland Group for inviting me here today. I've been out of the industry for the past four years and out of the profession in the Police service, and it's very nice to be invited back to a gathering like this. I started at LPI in mid February as the General Manager there and obviously I'm on a very big catch up type program at the moment to try and find out what's been happening over the last four years. Its very nice to come to the Cumberland Group and meet with so many of my fellows who are in the same profession, industry as ourselves. This group I haven't been here before, this is my first time at the group, but I have heard about the Cumberland Group Development Seminars and they're very highly regarded, which is obvious from the numbers of people that you get here each year. Its quite staggering and I think it is an indication of the health of the profession and the industry that you'll get so many people at a function like this year after year, so you should be congratulated, the organisers of this and everybody supporting the profession and the industry. It's very good to see and its also evidenced by the agenda; the agenda that you have here today is extremely relevant, you have very well qualified speakers and the fact that you can attract somebody like Dr Refshauge to talk at the dinner tonight just shows you how highly regarded this gathering is, so it's very pleasing to see.

Now Michael alluded to some of the difficulties in the land development industry and so on. Governments, I think, at all levels are certainly starting to, well not just not starting to, they are well aware of the problems of sustainable development and the problems of the environment and social issues associated with those.

Now I think that it's also at the Federal, State and local government levels we are aware of that. One thing that is in common with all those things is the information that's needed for those decisions to be made that will allow us to make sure that we address those issues. You will notice that even with the private sector and industries outside of our own, there is a lot of people now demanding that they do what they call triple bottom line accounting which means that not only are people looking at the financial performance of an organization, they're also looking at their environmental track record and they're also looking at their social track record, and these are the investors who are demanding that the companies behave in a particular fashion and make sure that they sustainably develop in whatever industry that they're in. So its not unique to our particular area of endeavour, its across the board.

The one thing that we will need to do I think is its putting more pressure on us to have more accurate information so these decisions can be made, more timely information more understandable information, more integrated information, more accessible information and that's where I think a lot of us in this group in here today we all play a part in that.

We've seen a lot of changes with I guess things like the e-business strategies and 'e' to 'b' and 'b' to 'c' and every other buzzword you can think of but really it is changing the way we're interacting with our clients. It's changing the way we're interacting ourselves with our own daily lives, in the way we do our banking the way we order tickets over the Internet and so on, but it really is having a profound effect on the way we are going to deal with our clients and with our suppliers.

One of the things that it will help; it obviously helps with the timeliness of being able to get information out to people also helps with accessibility, but it certainly doesn't help with things to do with the accuracy of the information whether its integrated and some of those other aspects that we are facing all of us are facing great difficulties in bringing those standards up at the moment.

One of the other things that those of us who are in government and local government are aware of is that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do it immediately. The fact that the technology is there doesn't mean that our client groups are ready to accept the new way of doing business and we'll often have to run in parallel the way that we approach these issues so we can't force people to use the new technologies, we can try to encourage them but we must also make sure that we provide for those who don't wish to move to that technology immediately, which those legacy systems do cost more money but that's one of the aspects of being in government that we have to recognise that aspect.

Now, I was at an AURISA conference last week and a forum last week, over 100 people there too which is further evidence of the fact that I think we are in a very healthy stage of our in our industry's development. Now at that I was saying well what's changed over the last four years. I know many of the audience here are surveyors, and I think they think its been an absolute snail's pace the changes that happen but having been out of it for four years and coming back, I can see that there is quite a bit of change happened across the whole of the industry and across the way people think about the industry and the profession generally. Obviously its very hard to see that from within I couldn't see it when I was in the industry before, I thought everything was going very slowly, but I've seen tremendous changes.

One of the obvious ones to myself obviously is the bringing together of LPI. Now for the last 20 years there's been talk about bringing the information at least from the Valuer General's, the Registrar General's and the Surveyor General's operations together. Things that are vital for those fundamental parts of information that we need to look at, things about ownership and rights to do with land, the shape, size, location, the parcels of land and the value of the land, things that are absolutely fundamental. Now, try as they may, and with goodwill, the former Surveyor General, Valuer General and Registrar General tried to bring those information sets together and integrate them. Institutional issues got in the way, those institutional issues are now removed, and I'm looking forward to being able to integrate that information, so at least at this level we will be able to provide probably more accurate, because we'll be able to scrub the data together, more accurate and integrated information, with our e-business strategy we'll be able to make it more accessible, so there are a lot of things with that group of information that happens to be under LPI that we will be able to meet some of those challenges of more accessible, more available, more integrated information. We will be able to make that available so it's very pleasing that we are in that situation.

To some extent my role has been made a lot easier the statutory roles and the policy roles if you like of Surveyor General, Valuer General and Registrar General are now outside of LPI. My role is, as General Manager, is to make it all happen, to make it more effective and efficient. So some of the complexities of wearing two hats have now disappeared, and Warwick Watkins who is addressing you later today is wearing a couple of those hats, as many of you are aware.

I think probably the major change I've seen is in I guess the attitudes of everybody within the industry, when I left and certainly a few years before I left, it was very adversarial between government, local government and the private sector. I think across all industries that's changed. I believe there is a blurring of the boundaries between the private sector and the government sectors, there is realisation that there is a role for each to play. There are grey areas and in the past I think what we tended to do with those grey areas we spent a lot of debate and a lot of time trying to work out where that line was between the two groups. I think now what I'm picking up is there is a lot more willingness to just work together cooperate in those grey areas and work in partnership. At the AURISA Conference also somebody stated there is a 20% growth in the spatial information generally however you'd like to define that, if that's the case we'd be very silly to continue to squabble over exactly where a line is, rather than working together to make sure that we continue that growth in the industry and I'm certainly looking forward to that, working with everybody to help in that area.

The other thing and Warwick Watkins may, or may not, touch on this afternoon, the other thing Warwick Watkins has mentioned about some of the things that cause great angst in the past, things about access and pricing, and he outlined to that forum just exactly where that's up to and a decision is imminent and I think that a lot of the angst that's been there in the past will go away once that is put in place, so that's something also to look forward to.

The thing about this seminar I like it is really addressing all those things. It is looking at those planning issues, its looking at the planning issues with 'first plan' and so on or 'plan first', I'll get it right, things to do with using technologies to get further to the community and community input to get greater access and you'll be hearing more about that I presume from those presentations and it is about environmental issues, so really this is extremely relevant and you should be congratulated on putting this seminar together and the relevance of it.

So I'd really like to once again thank the Cumberland Group for inviting me, I think they should be congratulated for putting this on. I'm sure this will be a success and I look forward to working with all of you in the future and I wish you well and if it is my role to officially declare this open, I officially declare this open.

Thank you.

Michael Parkinson - Chairman, Cumberland Group

Thanks very much Des; before I introduce Terry Watkinson, the President of the Institution Surveyors NSW, I'd like to thank the Cumberland Group's major sponsor, LegalCo with their banner up there. LegalCo provide all manner of electronic business information and its through LegalCo that ACS Search obtain all their DPs and Titles so by supporting LegalCo you're supporting ACS and you're also supporting the Cumberland Group and helping to keep prices down for events such as this. So through LegalCo and the ACS search service you can obtain DPs, titles, sewer diagrams and all types of business information so I'd urge you all to support them. I'd now like to call upon Terry Watkinson President of IS NSW to say a few words. Thanks Terry.

APPLAUSE

Terry Watkinson - President, ISA-NSW

Thanks Michael. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to the Cumberland Group on their continued organisation of this excellent development seminar. The Cumberland Group is one of the most pro-active groups in NSW. Not only does this group provide this very important forum for dissemination of information and ideas to the largest gathering of surveyors in NSW, but it also provides strong support to the division in the organisation of surveying in the State. This group provides an ideal role model for all groups within NSW and I'd like to encourage the groups to look to this as a model. I sincerely thank the group committee and the members for their efforts.

At this time as my term as President of the Institution is drawing to a close, I'd like to reflect on some of the highlights I've experienced. Most of those or some of those have obviously been involved with government and probably our involvement in the merging of the agencies, as Des has talked about, the LTO, the LIC, Surveyor General's office, and Valuer General's office into the LPI NSW has been the most important. It's most appropriate that the opening speaker today is Des and I thank him for his words here. Our involvement in this matter has been to reinforce the role of surveyors in maintaining the integrity of the cadastre and in ensuring that the surveyors will retain a position of high profile in the new entity. Its important that we as surveyors are there to show those people in the higher echelons that surveying is important.

Our involvement in the national competition policy review of the Surveyors Act and related legislation has been also most important. The importance of this matter is indicated by the formation of the sub committee, the 'regulation sub committee' I called it, and that committee has put a lot of effort into responding to the matters of the national competition policy review.

I've indicated many times in writing and talking that I consider the proposed restructure of the Board of Surveyors in this State to be the most important matter since the introduction of the Surveyors Act in 1929. We continue to liaise with the Board in this matter and I believe that eventually we will see major changes in the surveying industry. As recently as this week we've discussed the possibility of bringing the surveying family together under one banner, and I'd like to see that.

Our involvement with education institutions has been most extensive, we've been involved with the University of NSW, University of Newcastle and the TAFE's to promote surveying education. We've been involved with the University of NSW on the advisory committee and most importantly to promote the restoration of the name of surveying into the course. Our involvement in the promotion of workshops to assist members with the introduction of GST was most extensive. I believe that we had more people at those workshops than any other profession. Our promotion of CPD twilight seminars have proved very popular and also the remote members seminar. I'm sure a lot of people here have had a lot of benefit from those seminars.

We're now promoting communication to all members by e-mail and the Internet. I encourage all members to embrace those facilities. It amazes me sometimes to see there are members who are not yet on the Internet. As for the future, I look forward to the continued progress in bringing the surveying community in NSW together.

Federally, I have great concerns at the proposal to bring spatial information organisations together under the banner of the Spatial Sciences Coalition. It's not that I don't want it but I have great concerns, some of the questions that need to be answered, corporate membership, the difference between institution membership and for argument's sake AURISA, the funding, some organisations obtain the bulk of funds through conferences, ISA funds are generated through member subscriptions. Membership qualifications, in some organisations you don't have to have a qualification, you just go into it. I believe that this needs to be sorted out to maintain our professionalism. What the core services are going to be provided and what will the annual accreditation requirements be. I also see different cultural matters between the different jurisdictions as being a concern.

As I've travelled over the last 18 months or so the most emphatic comment has been the lack of return to members. I can't talk about it, I can't tell you how to charge for you work, but I do encourage you to consider your self worth within your practices. The work you've undertaken to achieve your surveying qualifications places you in a high plane in comparison to other professions. I urge you to make this work worth your while.

Finally we've had some unsettled times at the Institution over the last few months. Now with the appointment of the new Executive Officer and the election of the next President, I believe that the future is very bright. I look forward to the period of growth in the professional standing of surveyors in NSW. Bob Harrison who is well known to most members has been elected President and will assume the position in October. Jill Boehm has commenced as Executive Office and I can assure that change is already very evident. Thank you very much.

Michael Parkinson - Chairman, Cumberland Group

We'll start the first session off, Planning Issues 2001. I'd like to call upon Kerry Bedford, Kerry is the Director of the Policy & Reform Branch in the Department of Urban Affairs & Planning and that branch is responsible for 'Plan First' which you'll be hearing about shortly, the reforms to how plans are made in NSW and that includes State, regional and local plans. Also development practice, how Councils assess development applications through the oversight of construction including private certifiers and the ongoing development of the Building Code of Australia. Kerry has been with the Department for six years working in regional planning teams, before joining the reform branch.

I'd like you all to give Kerry Bedford a warm welcome.

Kerry Bedford, Director, Planning & Environment, DUAP

Thanks Michael. "Planning 2001" Its all about change, I think, and more and more even though from your perspective it seems like things are going slowly, from my perspective I think there has been so many changes over the last six years, that sometimes its hard to keep up.

Today I'm talking about 3 of those changes that should be on your horizon. One is 'Plan First' can I have a show of hands for anybody who has been to a 'Plan First' presentation. Okay, thanks that gives me an idea of how much detail to go into, and then designing to prevent crime and ideas for community consultation.

I want to briefly give an overview of the current planning system in NSW. There are 70 State environmental planning policies, and they range from very detailed development controls about specific developments to statewide issues like Wetlands. I don't know how many regional environmental plans there are but I know there's not a comprehensive set of regional environmental plans for the State. Then there are at least 173 local environmental plans one for each local Council and a lot of Councils have more than one, in fact some Councils have over 100. Then you've got development control plans, which can relate to car parking or specific sites or issues. On top of that you can have strategies, there's determinations and directions under the Act you can also have master plans and precinct plans. They are just the plans under the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act. You add on to that the plans under other legislation which are growing all the time, Native Vegetation, Water Management, Threatened Species, Recovery plans, it's a very complex system.

Despite that complexity, people actually told us that there were strengths in the current system. One of the things they said was that they liked the distinction between State, regional and local interests and they want that transferred into the new system. They also like the fact there are opportunities for public consultation that its in the legislation, that you must consult when you do a local plan. People also said the Act allows for great innovation. It hasn't been used that much, but where it has been used some Councils have done very innovative things to achieve specific outcomes in their areas and that the concept of zoning is well understood. There are weaknesses and the first one clearly is that it's complex. You would know this if you are trying to find out for a client what they can do on their land, you might have to sift through a whole series of plans to find out that even when you think you've got everything sorted out you go to Council and you get a surprise at the end that it gets refused.

There is a lack of strategic planning. There is not enough forethought put into the issues that need to be considered. Threatened species I think is an example of a lack of strategic planning, if we could identify those threatened species up front and not leave it to the tail end of the development application stage, we would have a much better system.

A lack of integration between plans and levels of government. No monitoring and review, there are some plans that apply in Sydney that date back to the 1950s which of itself is not necessarily bad but if they don't reflect the current community concerns then you definitely get trouble when you're doing a development application.

Even though the Act provides for public participation people said its not effective enough, we have to be more effective in getting people involved in planning and that there may not be lots of issues raised at the rezoning stage but when the application comes in people suddenly see it differently. So somehow we've got to get people involved at the zoning stage.

So why change? We need to actively engage the community; we definitely need to coordinate government; we need a strategic approach to planning underpinned by sustainability. Now sustainability it's a bit of a buzzword at the moment a few years ago it was called ecological sustainable development. Sustainability is, I think, something that we are growing in understanding about and debate and for me its simply about the type of environment the type of community that we leave for our children and their children, and we don't know exactly how to build sustainable development we are learning. But this is what we've got to try and embrace. Every time we make a new discovery to build it into our planning system so that we can get better and better at looking after our environment and our social and economic opportunities as well.

And we need plans that respond to change. We started with a green paper 3 years ago which basically said do nothing or go to the other extreme of regionalising State government. We had 50 discussion groups across the State we had about 300 submissions, we did a feedback report we held additional focus groups then we produced the White Paper which has been on exhibition this year.

So we've actually had quite a lengthy process in talking about how to redesign the planning system; a 3 year process in effect.

Now 'Plan First' is really about a place that reflects the wider communities future. So not only do we recognise local interests, but also State and regional interests. The most important part of the 'Plan First' proposal is the local plan. The idea is a single local plan for one Council area; not 100, not lots of development control plans; just one plan. Also a single regional strategy for each region in NSW. There are 15 proposed in the White Paper, many of the submission have said that's not enough and clearly that's something we have to look at but the idea is to have at least a regional strategy for every part of NSW. At the State level a document with all the planning policies in it, not just the policies of Urban Affairs & Planning but also the policies of Agriculture, Land and Water, or National Parks & Wildlife Service, policies that affect the way development happens.

Now the key features of the system are:-
· strategic,
· whole of government,
· clear and accessible plans.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pick up a plan and you could understand what you could do on the parcel. A more versatile tool box so not just section 94 contributions, not just development agreements, are there better ways that we can look at achieving outcomes that suit the developer and the community.

To get communities involved up front so they're not going to complain when a development application comes along, and responsive plans. Now the local plans are to be a strategic whole of Council plan. If you've ever worked in a Council you'll know there are apart from the local plan and the developmental control plan, section 94 plan, there are probably tourism plans, State of Environment plans, social plans, management plans maybe storm water plans they go on and on. And often they aren't coordinated. So the principal under plan first is coordinate all these plans into a strategic approach to what they want for the area. It needs to be outcome focussed and it needs to set the actions for what Council is going to do; how its going to spend its money and also how developers come in to redevelop sites.

There won't be separate plans but it will be a single plan so no split between local environmental plan, development control plan and it will be locality based. So you will be able to log on; find a parcel of land, find out all the information that you need to know about that parcel. Also, if you want to find out what's happened in the area, you can see if the State Government is building a new railway, where the new schools are proposed whether they're closing a school. Whether the council is doing upgrading work, whether there is a new park proposed. So, you won't have to go to different silos in the Council area to find out all the information will be in one place.

With an emphasis on monitoring and review, the Council currently does a state of environment report and many of Councils actually monitor social trends as well. The idea here is to make sure that whatever controls are in place they're actually leading to the outcome that the community has said they wanted.

Importantly under 'plan first' the proposal is the plan will be made by Council and not by the Minister for Urban Affairs & Planning. So a single plan; locality is established through community participation, it will have statutory force, and it will implement the regional strategy.

The local plan will contain a strategic component with a picture of what the area what the population you'd like now and where they want to be with some outcomes in how to get there. And then an implementation component with the strategies and actions that Council will take; strategies and actions that State government will take and how new development happened with monitoring and review.

Now to the regional strategies, whole of government place based strategy. The regional strategy is in fact where we as a State government need to resolve conflicts that are there within legislation at the State level. We have threatened species, economic development, at the State level they can be completely contradictory. When you get down into a region into a place we are looking for the regional strategy to resolve those conflicts; to identify threatened species that cannot be touched; to identify areas that can be developed. So that the State government agencies can come together at the regional level and work out on a place where development can happen where conservation must happen. It will set the context for local planning. It will be drawn up by a regional forum in consultation with business and community and it will be approved by the State government, not by the Minister for Urban Affairs & Planning, but by the whole State government so that there is sign off from all those agencies.

At the moment you have different agencies requiring different elements of a development under different legislation. We are looking to try to coordinate that through the regional strategy so you don't get these divisions say with a Part 3A permit by Dept of Land and Water Conservation (DLWC) or threatened species problems. To do strategic planning up front and resolve those conflicts at the regional level.

So the regional strategy will be a comprehensive strategy and where there are other plans prepared by other agencies like catchment management plans, native edge, where they have actions or controls that affect development or affect conservation, they would be brought into the regional strategy. So that when a Council is looking at drawing up their local plan; they can go to the regional strategy with confidence that they have all the information that they need and they don't have to go and check the management plan the catchment management plan or the native edge plan they will go to the regional strategy.

Similarly economic development plans which are put out by State and regional development and the service delivery plans which are put out by the Premier's department again when they have actions or controls that affect local planning they will go into the regional strategy.

Now an important issue it wouldn't matter where we drew the regional boundary. If we picked at catchments or administrative boundaries, we won't suit everybody there will be some issue that won't suit that boundary. So clearly we need to address cross regional issues, particularly natural resource management and infrastructure when they're going across a number of regions.

Like the local plan they will contain a strategic component, a profile, a picture, if you like, of what the region is like now and where the region is going with an implementation component strategies and actions to be taken by the State government and monitoring and review.

They will be prepared by both State and local government, so that local government will have a say in the regional strategy so they don't come to implement something they are opposed to.

They will be submitted to a regional forum before being approved by the State government; reviewed annually and as a safety net if things are going wrong because the regional strategy is such an important part of the new 'Plan First' proposal, the Minister for Urban Affairs & Planning will be able to call it in and determine it.

The State Planning policies; a complete set of all the strategic planning policies by State government. They particularly need to pick up national and global trends to be able to respond to those issues that are really wider than the regions or the local area. They are very important to set the framework for the regional strategy.

The State planning policy is likely to have a policy part, some guidelines, there are many guidelines already put out by different agencies and sometimes there are development controls in State policies. Where it is a policy or a guideline it will directly go into the regional strategy and the local plan will then implement that policy.

If the State policy has specific standards like for example the State Environmental Planning Policy No 5 for aged housing, then those standard provisions will go directly into the local plan so that you won't have a 149 Certificate for example that has the local plan and then all the State planning policies attached to it. All of those development controls will be in the local plan. We're actually hopeful that we move away from that practice and we don't do that in the future, but I'm sure there are going to be cases where we will actually specify development controls for certain types of development or development procedures. If we do, then we will go in and amend the local plan rather than having it sitting at that top level.

The Plan First proposal is really about doing things better. In fact, we could do a lot of this under the current legislation but we feel that we need to make legislative change in order to drive the change in the practice. The consultation on the White Paper has actually finished and we received 400 submissions. We held 70 discussion groups around the State and we are currently reading through the submissions. We are going to get an independent person to actually give us a feedback report on the submissions. We think that we probably may be a bit too close to it, so we're going to get somebody from outside to have a look at it and give us a feedback report which will also be published for the wider audience and we expect to have a draft Bill on the legislative changes by September.

So from the big picture, I want to talk now about a detailed issue which is the crime assessment guidelines that were launched in April 2001. These guidelines are used by Council when they consider a development application. Now its entirely up to Council's discretion to decide what is relevant to a particular development application, but I know for example Hurstville Council is preparing a draft development control plan for designing developments to reduce risk. The guidelines are part of a package that grew out of the governments concern about the rate of crime in the community and the need to try to address this issue from all angles.

So the package contains the guidelines, the training program run by the Police (and a lot of Council people have already attended that it's called Safer by Design) and we are looking at whether or not we can introduce provisions in the BCA and the Urban Design Advisory Service are also looking at design guides to help people design to reduce crime.

Now Councils have always been required to consider these issues but clearly the guidelines have heightened the awareness of this issue. The guidelines talk about two things, firstly identifying crime risk and then secondly considering opportunities to minimise crime.

On the bigger applications Council will have to do a crime risk assessment with the police and bigger applications are likely to be shopping centres or transport interchanges. Councils can also develop guidelines for areas where there may be a high incidence of crime. So really you need to contact the Council to find out what they're doing in this issue.

When they do get an application they have to look at four principles which are in the Crime Assessment Guidelines and they are
o surveillance,
o access control,
o territorial reinforcement and
o space management

four big words but in practice they come down to some very simple things.

The development application can actually be modified by Council, if they consider that there is a crime risk. That means they can put a condition on your application about redesigning an area and it is a performance based approach in other words the level of concern would depend upon the perceived level of risk.

So for applicants, crime prevention is really about good design. These are some of the things you can do. You can increase the perception that areas will be overlooked and subject to people detecting crime. So good surveillance just means that people can see what other people are doing. Or you can have mechanical surveillance, you can put in cameras. You can create spaces where the boundary between private and public space is clear so that there can be no confusion that somebody is actually intruding into a private space. It's also possible to create spaces that attract people into them and that encourage the people who are around them to take them on and own them as their own, keep them clean, look after them. There are design guidelines, 'Better Urban Living and the NSW Model Code' which have got some ideas for how to do this detailed design and also the local Police are offering to give their views on crime risk.

I think this is an example of where communities are demanding high quality decisions on an ever increasing range of issues and we are seeing this over the last six years, more and more issues are being brought into the consideration of development applications and part of 'Plan First' is to try to get this issue up front in the plan rather than at the DA stage. Here is an example where we've got another issue being considered on the development application. It brings me to the next part of my talk, which is about community consultation and the more demanding the community is getting on planning.

With the 'Plan First' White Paper was also a booklet put out called 'Ideas for Community Consultation'. I'll give you an overview of what was in that document, we have received a lot of submissions about it so we are going to produce a set of guidelines for basically how to do good consultation.

The report suggests three things.
§ that there are a set of principles that should always be used,
§ that collaboration is the way to do planning, and
§ it suggests a four step model.

Now to the principles. This is quite a long list and I think a lot of them are very self evident, but nevertheless they need to be acknowledged. It needs to be timely, the consultation needs to be timely, not so late that people can't influence the decision. It needs to be inclusive to include a cross section of people and they suggest random selection is the best way of doing that. consultation needs to be community focussed when people are asked to be involved in something they need to be asked to act as a citizen, not to act in their own interests. And it needs to be interactive and deliberate. Consultation needs to let people think about the big picture. It needs to be effective, now decision making can strive for consensus but complete agreement need not be the outcome, and often isn't the outcome. So we need to be clear about how decisions will be made and understand the impact of the involvement of the consultation. It needs to matter, its important that any recommendations that emerge from consultation are adopted and if they aren't then a full explanation needs to be given, otherwise people just lose faith in the process. It needs to be well facilitated and they suggest that an independent facilitator with no vested interest in the outcome is the best way to do that. It needs to be open, fair, subject to evaluation. Clearly it needs to be cost effective. Consultation is a very resource intensive exercise, not just for the people who organise it but also for participants and I've heard people in the community say we're burnt out, we can't go to another public meeting, we just don't feel like we're really being heard. so we need to make it cost effective and we need to choose the right method for the right situation, and we need to be flexible.

The second element is collaboration. That's really each participant bringing different views to the table allowing the issues to be discussed collectively allowing different views to be justified, looking for areas that are held in common and then identifying the areas of difference. Effective collaboration is really about planning through debate with a range of participants who reflect the social diversity of the area you're being planned for. It's really about working together rather than imposing decisions on people.

The third suggestion is a four-step model. The first one is to create a vision, or a set of goals and to establish the values of how you will measure the success of your consultation. The next step is to collect expert or specialist knowledge and form a small reference group that devise an action plan, create a list of options and assess their viability. Then you randomly select citizens to test how acceptable those options are. Now if the options are unacceptable then you need to go back to the beginning. If they are acceptable then you can go out to the broader community and importantly you need to evaluate the consultation process.

Now the reports also got a list of some different procedures for how we might do consultation better. We tend to mostly use ads in papers or public meetings or seminars but they've actually got a list of some different ideas:

Search conferences; this is where you target people who have specialist skills, create a small work group and work over an intensive period of time and this is effective in the early stage of the process where you might be developing the vision or plans of action.

Polls. In this case people are randomly selected, usually several hundred people so the sample in this case is quite significant and the views are established by a poll. Then it's followed up by a discussion group with a facilitator, then you vote at the end. This is a very costly exercise, but it can be very effective way of dealing with a large planning issue.

Citizens jury: in this case you randomly select a small representative group with a facilitator they meet over 2-4 days and discuss an issue, they can call in expert witness if they so wish they produce a formal report and it's a useful way of resolving complex issues.

A consensus conference is the same, except that it is held over 1-2 years. This could be useful where the agenda is fairly open, this is something we could have used on the White Paper, we've had a 3 year program of consultation we could have formed a consensus conference and actually used this group to test ideas over a long period of time.

Focus groups: in this case you pick a group of people who are already involved in the issue, have a lot of knowledge about the area, and you use it to work through detailed issues, so the broader community might have decided the direction, this group comes together and nuts out some of the detail.

Chiretts, if you've never been involved in a chirett get invited to one they're lots of fun, they're usually interactive meetings held between technical people, there is usually an ad in the paper to invite the community to come along and participate, it might go for 1-2 days or sometimes a week and its about a specific area or a specific issue that needs to be resolved and its done with a community who are affected and the people who have the technical knowledge.

The last one is residents' feedback panels. In this case people are randomly selected who represent various interests and it can be 50 to several thousand people depending on the issue, the group is maintained over a long period of time 2-4 years and they are asked to give feedback by telephone, face to face interviews or questionnaires. They don't actually meet as a group but they form a representative sample who are tested over a significant period of time. Now we could have used this for example in the Part 4 reforms. When they came in we wanted to check how they were going, we could have picked about you know 2000 people across the State and actually got their feedback about how the reforms were going.

Just looking at this list and all the principles you can see whereas once we just would put an ad in the paper consultation itself is becoming an industry. I mean its almost creating a new type of professional to run consultation. It reflects the fact that the community as a whole; they're no longer willing to leave decisions to a small group of informed people; they want to be involved themselves, they want to influence the decisions and clearly we need to get better at doing it at being able to give the community opportunities to put ideas in and to reach agreement on the way that we should go.

So to sum up planning 2001, I still think its all about change, whether in the public or the private sector. We spend more and more time just keeping up with the changes that are happening, and the current changes at the moment for us are the focus on planning in NSW, striving to get 'whole of government' plans, local plans with all the relevant information in one place, clearly with a growing emphasis on design and its happening with Bob Carr's message about residential flat buildings as well, how we can design safer places and buildings as an all important part of the environment that we create for ourselves, but also for the future generations, and the expectations of the community are expanding all the time. Community involvement and the ownership of plans is an important element in the 'Plan First' proposals to try to get the participation up front to avoid those surprises that you get at the development application stage and importantly to achieve the results that we all want on the ground. This I think is a major challenge for all of us. Thank you.

Michael Parkinson - Chairman, Cumberland Group

Thank you for a very interesting talk, we'll move right along now. The second part of the first session is a panel discussion involving three of the major Councils in Sydney. I'd like to call upon Peter Fryar first, Peter is the Manager of Hornsby Council's Development Assessment Function and prior to that in 1996 he was the Planning Manager of Byron Shire Council and there are lots of planning issues going on there, and earlier than that he was a Team Leader of the Planning Section at Wyong Shire Council. I'd like you all too give Peter Fryar a warm welcome.

Peter Fryar, Manager of Hornsby Council's Development Assessment Function

I'm going to try to run through general issues with the submission of a development application to Council and what I've endeavoured to do today is provide a brief overview particularly focussed on Hornsby Shire Council and their specific requirements in the preparation of a DA and more so with the submission of Statement of Environmental Effects with an application.

Hornsby Shire, for those who don't know, is situated on the northern part of Sydney it covers a vast portion of Sydney and extends up to the Hawkesbury River, is bounded by the Hawkesbury on the north, running generally from areas of the township of Brooklyn up to Wisemans Ferry. Old Northern Road forms the western boundary between Hornsby and Baulkham Hills and Hornsby extends down to the suburbs of Eastwood, Epping, back up through Pennant Hills, Hornsby itself, then generally following the northern railway line the F3 back up to the Hawkesbury River.

Beyond being a very large Shire, particularly on Sydney scale, the Shire covers a multitude of land use activities and also has a very diverse topography, which is characterised predominantly by rural areas in the north, National Park, down to built out urban areas and large commercial centres, Hornsby being the major town centre where Westfields are currently building a major shopping complex.

What I'd like to do is run through just generally the briefly the planning framework that applies to Hornsby and then go through a series of I guess steps to be followed in the preparation of a Statement of Environmental Effects that might assist you. I understand today that a lot of people here are surveyors and the like but I'm sure people generally who are linked with the development industry have been involved in either the preparation of a DA or had some sort of input into providing documents associated with that DA.

In Hornsby Shire the local planning control is the Hornsby LEP which was introduced in 1994 and the Hornsby Shire also has something in the order of 50 odd development control plans, and those DCP's range from site specific DCP's to I guess general development control plans that might relate to car parking and the like to development specific type of DCPs for example a DCP that might relate to multi unit housing.

The Council has also developed a rural land study and an urban land study and the information that I'll go into in both of those studies is quite relevant to an application in determining the level of information they should submit with a DA.

Hornsby Shire also has large areas that have been identified as conservation areas and they also place constraints on information to be submitted with a DA.

What I've done here is identified some major steps to be followed when preparing a DA. Probably the most important issue initially to look at is the planning framework that might apply to a parcel of land and that includes consideration of relevant State Environmental plans, I'm using planning jargon up here but SEP's (State Environmental Planning Policies), REP's (Regional Environmental Plans), there's various State government and local government policies that might be applicable as well, then you step down to the local government area as all Councils would have a relevant DCP's that I've previously mentioned, LEP's and policy provisions.

Site capability I will go into a bit more detail, I mentioned the urban and rural land studies. Hornsby in 1996 completed what we call our 'Sensitive Urban Land Study' and it touched in the bulk of the urban land throughout the Shire and basically looked at a series of elements from topography to soil structure and the like. The information that came from that is used as the basis for basically advising an applicant when they come to Council as to the constraints on that land and the type of information they should address in submitting a DA.

There also has been a rural land study which has led to a recent rural lands LEP that's been gazetted throughout the rural parts of the shire.

The other two steps before I go into this issue of site capability, the other two issues that are key to be considered are applicant's requirements in the preparation of your DA and also looking at neighbours requirements as well.

I mentioned the 'Sensitive Urban Land Study' that was undertaken by Council. What that study did was look at all the urban lands throughout the shire and basically what the Council have done is categorised on each block of land a sensitivity rating and you can see from the list of dot points I have there, these are the types of areas that were part of that study and those for example topography was looked at on each individual parcel of land on a broad sense and Council have gone to a point of actually giving a rating on each block of land. If we talk topography you might look at a parcel of land, you could come into Council in preparing a DA and ask for land sensitivity ratings that might apply to that land, and the Council on each block through our urban areas have basically given three levels applying to that land.

A level 3 rating means that you will most definitely be required to prepare additional information in putting a DA to Council for example if you have a level 3 rating in respect of topography of land it will almost be an essential criteria that a geotech report be prepared and accompany the application. If you've got a parcel of land that has a level 3 rating in respect of topography you're virtually looking at a block of land that's on the side of a cliff face.

A level 2 rating means that you may be required to submit additional supportive documentation and a level 1 rating indicates that only standard documentation is to be submitted.

Just briefly on the rural lands; I mentioned the Rural Lands Study, likewise, basically if your land is near sensitive bushland or threatened flora and fauna habitat then there will be requirements to provide additional information there.

I know we're pressed for time so what I'll do is run through what I've listed here of basic information that needs to be prepared and submitted with a Statement of Environmental Effects.

Firstly a site analysis. A site analysis often overlooked by applicants and to me its one of the most important assessments that should be done up front in preparing a DA. I quite often suggest to applications to actually take a notepad, walk around the block of land, draw the dimensions of the site, sketch on it natural features or improvements that exist on the land and look around you and see what's on adjoining properties as well. In other words get a feel for what constraints apply to that land and then any design or development of that land should take into consideration those constraints.

It is important to look at previous land use activities on the site whether the land may have evidence of contaminated soil. Your statement should also provide a full description of the development. Quite often applicants would come in and they would submit an application and they're vague as to exactly what they're proposing and its important that up front that you are quite specific as to the consent that you are actually seeking from the Council.

Statements should go into looking at issues of privacy, looking at views, loss of amenity on adjoining properties and the like, drainage and flooding issues, koala habitat its quite common in a lot of the fringe areas of Sydney where you've got bushland, provisions of SEP 44 may come into play there are requirements there to do koala habitat studies and the like. Erosion and sedimentation controls again they should be looked at in the preparation of the Statement of Environmental Effects, quite often applicants feel that these are matters that can be condition on a consent I really feel that they should be matters that should be addressed up front.

Heritage conservation: A big issue in urban parts of Hornsby, Cheltenham, Beecroft, parts of Epping, parts of Pennant Hills are all fall into heritage conservation areas, it's a matter then of looking at the need for heritage assessment in putting in a DA.

Acoustic if you're near a railway line obviously you've got to look at the need for an acoustic assessment and a report.

Landscape and scenic quality aspects, public authorities whether the development requires approval from various other authorities, and the need to it may well fall into the category of being integrated development for example there's a lot of water courses throughout Hornsby shire and water courses people are finding more and more what they thought was a small depression in their land Department of Land & Water Conservation are classifying as a water course, and consequently they have a proposal that becomes integrated development.

Additional documentation, if you're preparing an application that might simply be dealing with a change of use, its important that your Statement of Environmental Effects address things like the nature of the operation of that use, hours of operation, types of plant and machinery that might be used and the number of employees and things of that nature.

Finally the circumstances of the case. It's a good term that, its often used as a ground of refusal on a DA but in broad speaking terms it prompts you as an applicant to start looking at the site, the proposal, stand back and give thought as to any other matters that might need to be addressed.

I might just conclude here by just covering a few key points that I've mentioned here. Consult in the preparation of your DA, consult with relevant staff in Council, discuss issues with adjoining property owners even in the preparation of a DA, get a feel for what the neighbours are concerned about and try to address that in your design. Understand the process with the Council; it sometimes can be a lengthy convoluted, frustrating process for an applicant but have an appreciation that the process is there and the process has to be followed. Be flexible in your approach, putting your DA together, don't have a fixed idea up front that you want to get ten town houses on the block of land. Look at the constraints of the land, I mentioned the Councils sensitivity ratings, they will quite often dictate the level of development that you can place on a parcel of land, have realistic expectations, listen to the community and the concerns they might have and I guess if all else fails there is also the court process to follow. Hornsby Council is one Council that tries to discourage applicants going to the Court but even if the appeal process is followed we are very pro active in sitting down around a table and trying to resolve matters outside the Court process.

I might leave that at that and pass over to my two other colleagues now, thank you.

Michael Parkinson - Chairman, Cumberland Group

Thanks very much Peter. I'd now like to introduce Gareth Ponton from Blacktown City Council, Gareth has a degree in Town Planning with Honours Class 1 and University Medal from University of NSW. He has worked in a diverse range of strategic and statutory planning roles at a senior level in both urban and rural growth areas. Gareth's current position is Manager of Development Services with Blacktown Council. Development Services comprise of approximately 30 engineers, town planners and works overseers and he's responsible for all engineering and town planning approvals, and inspections within the Council. I'd like you all to welcome Gareth Ponton please.

Gareth Ponton - Manager Development Services Unit, Blacktown Council

I've taken a slightly different approach to Peter. I've actually picked out a couple of categories of development which we deal with on a regular basis and they are dual occupancies (they seem to cause problems in infill areas) and also subdivisions of two lots and subdivisions of greater than two lots. The former usually occur in built up or infill areas, the other occur in 'greenfield' locations.

Just to set the scene, the dual occupancies, as they involve a structure, there is some impact but its usually fairly minimal, the sub divisions the two lots usually don't have a lot of issues, but the greater than two lots do have many issues and therefore I'll get into it later, but I'm suggesting that really a lot of the preparation of the application simply relies on adopting a common sense approach and looking and seeing what you're dealing with.

To assist applicants, the Council's development application actually has a matrix included in it which tells you whether or not you need a Statement of Environmental Effects, and then it gives a brief overview of what's required but basically in a lot of cases many applicants don't bother reading that information or they don't consult with Council staff and therefore a number of delays are experienced. I'd just like to qualify that the present company here are excluded from that latter statement.

I'll start with dual occupancy. Basically what I'd suggest there, is that these are usually the issues and what people what the applicants should do or those representing the applicants is put themselves in the shoes of the adjoining neighbours and envisage the potential impact on those persons and design accordingly, and any statement that results from an assessment undertaken in that fashion will generally assist Council officers in dealing with potential objections. If someone comes to the counter enquiring about an application and the officer doesn't know the answers or hasn't got enough information well you can bet that person will turn into a fully fledged objector so it's a bit of a two way street in that instance.

With subdivision generally, as Peter said, if you just take a site walk up the front over any site whether it be a two lot sub division or greater than two lots you can usually identify the issues that need to be addressed in any detail and that's just a brief overview of the issues we tend to deal with on a regular basis. Many people should be aware of what's required. My advice is, now we've got other players involved, is that its very important to consult with Environment Australia if required and also if there's any water courses and so on make sure you talk to DLWC and we have 3 aboriginal groups in the Blacktown city area and if you consult with them up front usually there's no problems but if they're left out of the process there can be delays caused and we recently had work stopped on a major Council project because objects were found on the site which they should have been picked up earlier in the process so Councils sometimes are as guilty as practitioners.

With the two lot sub division as I said before there is usually very few issues and they're mainly related to older areas, to contamination, fauna and flora and archeology. Normally just a brief statement on each of those issues will suffice rather than going into a detailed statement supported by studies and so on. The greater than two lots subdivision, they're a little bit different as we all know. They're usually in the release areas and I've just suggested that a number of procedures be followed to avoid delays and, as we all know, everyone likes to blame the local authority for major delays but once again it's a joint problem with not enough information or if the information is not adequate well then there are delays, and the application bounces back between the Council and the applicant.

So I'm suggesting, as I said before, that you consult with the relevant government agencies up front, and also that you come in and have a meeting with the Council officers but you already, prior to that meeting, you need to have assessed the site in some detail and come up with your own list of what you think should go into the statement of environmental effects rather than have Council tell you what should go in. If you have a meeting with the Council officers well then the normal practice is that minutes are kept of our pre-lodgment meetings and many of you here have probably dealt with Blacktown Council and know the procedure. Those minutes can then be used as a check-list to prepare your application because any matters that are raised, any additional items are all included in that document and you can just use that then to guide you in the right direction.

The level of detail really would depend upon the signficance of the issues identified, we don't expect you to go into a full scale EIS for example for a 200 lot subdivision it's a matter of what issues are there and how you intend to address them.

In our release areas we've found the biggest problem in recent times has been the Cumberland Plain Woodland which probably everybody has experienced difficulties with, not that I'm suggesting that we knock it down and the other things of course are water courses and the very strong involvement of DLWC now in the integrated development process. The other one of course is the archeological implications of development the Land Councils are now very active and there are quite a number of archeological sites through the north west sector.

In closing, I'd like to say provided you adopt a common sense approach and just look at what you're dealing with and just determine what level of detail go and consult with the Council and hopefully applications will get through the system in a reasonable time. Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Michael Parkinson - Chairman, Cumberland Group

Thanks very much Gareth. Our next speaker is Malcolm Ryan from Hawkesbury City Council. Malcolm is the Director of Environment & Development at Hawkesbury Council and he's been a town planner in local government since graduating with a Degree in Town Planning from again University of NSW in 1981. He has other skills as well and he also has a Graduate Diploma in Mathematics in Computing from the University of Southern Queensland. Malcolm is also currently the President Elect of ARISA and represents the spatial industry including surveyors on the Industry Training Advisory Board ITAB. I'd like you all to welcome Malcolm.

Malcolm Ryan, Director, Environmental Services, Hawkesbury City Council

Good morning I'm the last of 3 town planners talking about the same thing all from the same university, it's a bit frightening isn't it. My approach again is slightly different from Peter and Gareth. Peter has dealt with individual requirements of one Council, Gareth pointed out some differences between applications and what level of information we need between two lot subdivision and dual occupancy and a subdivision greater than two lots. I'm going to take a more generic approach because Hawkesbury City Council as you know is the largest local government area in surface area in western Sydney 2,400 square kilometres we also have the smallest planning staff. So we need to be a bit more pro-active in getting information from applicants. So I also might be a touch more flippant than my previous two colleagues were.

So what is a Statement of Environmental Effects, quite simply it is about what your proposal would do to the environment. Now that involves two things, firstly you understand what your proposal is and you understand the environment it is going into. I have a particular belief that maybe we should change the name of the Development Application that implies something is going to change to an 'Application to Destroy the Environment' because whatever we do we're going to destroy something and don't be afraid to say it. You need to collect some general information about your site so you're understanding what's going on.

What does it all mean. Tell the truth. There is nothing worse than reading a Statement of Environmental Effects that is not truthful, or evades the issue and don't be afraid to include the bad bits. Tell us what's going to happen in reality, don't try and pretend that a 5,000 square metre factory building with 7 metres of cut in one corner is going to be a minor impact on the land form, that's clearly not the case. Just make sure you understand precisely what it is you're telling us you're going to build or you're going to create.

How to do it. Very similar to the other two. Understand the land's capabilities, the physical attributes of the land. Understand the land's suitability that is the human requirements: compare the needs of the proposal and draw some conclusions. So what is land capability, Peter touched on it a bit and what Hornsby Council requires, things such as slope, soil types, vegetation and I stress the issue that Gareth has raised, vegetation has now taken a whole new meaning, be careful what is a tree to some people is Cumberland Plain Woodland to another, and what looks like a wattle tree is in fact an endangered species, so be very careful and also realise that some plants are actually an annual growing season so if you go there in winter time there's nothing there, come back in spring and the whole place is full of endangered species.

Water courses, understand the difference between a water course under the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act, and we've just engaged a Fluvial Geomorphologist to tell us what that is and a river under new Rivers or Water Improvement Act.

Stability of the land, flooding effects which is obviously quite important to Hawkesbury so what's land suitability, its the infrastructure you need for people to use the land. The water needs, the sewer requirements, electricity, phone, the road network that's going to service the property how much do you need, do you need more do you need less, are you going to do something to the road network, other buildings, does your proposal overlook, will be overlooked, cast a shadow, and shadows themselves need to be calculated accurately and not just for the good times but also for the bad times.

Land suitability continues with things like views, it depends where you are. View may become very important and in fact very expensive, try and build a building in Mosman Council that blocks somebodys view of the Harbour and you realise what sort of antagonism you may generate. Build a building somewhere else where no-one can see it, maybe the view is not so important.

Understand your Councils zoning requirements. Kerry has mentioned that the 'Plan First' proposal is going to make it all in one place but bear in mind that all in one place may mean a document that's several thousand pages thick.

Development control plans. Peter said that Hornsby Council have 50 development control plans, Hawkesbury Council have published them all in one. Now this means you can come to us and get one book and I'm just boasting here, one book where you can get all our control plans in one place but understand this document is going to get 3 times bigger when we add the construction specifications and all the engineering specifications to it as well. Hopefully we'll give it to you on a CD Rom so you don't get too tired carrying it home.

But what to avoid? Over simplified statements. The classic one we get is the soil is deep. Now what does this mean to us. Does this mean its all collected at the bottom of the hill because its all washed off the top of the hill so its unstable, does this mean that the river has put it all there therefore it's a flood plain, are you trying to tell us that you're going to have to dig really deep holes before you can bear the building up and therefore need a great big machine in to do that; or are you telling us something else that effluent disposal is going to be really easy. Try to avoid those sorts of statements. And repetition. Just because it sounded good in the first part of the statement don't keep using it all the time. We can read, we understand things relatively simple and stop avoiding the adverse effects, come out front and say you are going to remove this stand of trees and replace it with 15 houses or if you're going to build a great big factory building tell us what its going to be. If you're going to do a subdivision with 300 lots tell us you're going to clear fell the whole site and put roads and houses on there, don't be afraid to tell us the truth because you could end up with a circumstance like this.

Obviously, as Peter and Gareth, have said the level of Statement of Environmental Effect is obviously something custom made to the job. What you need to defend a building like this and Peter may recognise these and these because understand I was Peter's predecessor at Byron Shire, its completely different to trying to defend something like that. You need to understand the circumstance that you're working in and tell the Council officer what's going to happen.

What to do? Use your skills to present the facts. Surveyors, and I assume most of you are surveyors, have an incredible range of skills that can be used and often are not used to present the facts to defend their client's case. Use technology. Often surveyors and other parts of the development industry are well versed at using technology, make sure you use that to communicate. Don't be afraid to ask Council officers or other people, neighbours, other people who have built other developments, find out what happened to them. And a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is one way to present a slope map, it is quite a technological achievement to present a slope map like that. There's always this way as well. Remember if you're living in an adverse climate and the weather becomes a problem don't forget to put the cloud and rain in as well. Thank you very much.

Michael Parkinson - Chairman, Cumberland Group

Thanks very much Malcolm. Now we'll have a couple of members of the Committee with roving mikes to pass to you for your questions to all our speakers. Do we have any questions.

QUESTIONS

Q: Greg Oxley

Thanks very much Michael. A question to Kerry. I think you answered this question for me last week Kerry but I'm a bit slow so you might run it past me again. The IDA process which was discussed by the other panel members and 'Plan First', how does that gel?

A: Kerry Bedford

Thanks. In the brave new world under Plan First, Land & Water Conservation would identify everything that is a river, would identify what controls what outcomes they want around those rivers, and they would be in the regional strategies. So that you wouldn't have to go to Land & Water now and get an approval. In fact under 'Plan First' there would be no secondary approvals because all the work would be done up front.

Greg Oxley

Thank you, everyone should support that then.

Kerry Bedford

Yes.

Q: Steven Choy

Another question for Kerry. In terms of trying to streamline the integration between the Commonwealth Biodiversity Act and the State Requirements, at the moment the impact for an application going through EA for say Cumberland there's about six months delay in terms of streamlining that particular or trying to streamline that process, obviously the Commonwealth Act is separate to the State Act. What's the proposal there, I know there are discussions between the State and Feds for a bilateral agreement, but is there any process whereby we can try and streamline that legislation?

A: Kerry Bedford

Unfortunately at the moment I don't think there is because the Commonwealth doesn't actually recognise local government and thats part of the problem so that's why they're asking for State government intervention. We think the long term solution is actually the regional strategy again because that regional level will have State government and local government in it but interstate a definitely problem and we are looking at ways to try and streamline it. I'm open to suggestions if you've got any ideas.

Malcolm Ryan I'll take the opportunity to give the local government planners perspective on the EPBC Act, we don't exist. The Commonwealth doesn't know about local Councils. Our instructions to you as applicants we can tell you the Act exists and that's all. We can't tell you that you need consent or don't need consent, we can't even assess your applications to whether it looks okay or doesn't look okay. If this situation you find annoying, you should be on our side of the table and see how it works as well. Its totally unsatisfactory and it needs to be resolved by the Commonwealth EA as soon as possible. Being a Council that joins a World Heritage area as well you can imagine that every chook farm that now comes to us is a potential reference to the EPBC Act as well as our own legislation.

Michael Parkinson

If there are no more questions we might break for morning tea. We're running a little bit behind schedule.

Return to Development Seminar Program

Return to Home Page