Territory Stories

Debates Day 1 - Tuesday 30 November 1993

Details:

Title

Debates Day 1 - Tuesday 30 November 1993

Other title

Parliamentary Record 23

Collection

Debates for 6th Assembly 1990 - 1994; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 6th Assembly 1990 - 1994

Date

1993-11-30

Notes

Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

Language

English

Subject

Debates

Publisher name

Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

Place of publication

Darwin

File type

application/pdf

Use

Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Copyright owner

Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/279510

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/418780

Page content

DEBATES - Tuesday 30 November 1993 major difference that exists between the applicant's appeal and the so-called third party appeal rights or the appeal rights of other parties. Mr BAILEY: Mr Chairman, the more I listen to the member for Nightcliff, the more I find it is impossible to understand why he has ended up taking his current position. He has made it quite clear ... Mr Ede: He did not! He was rolled. Mr BAILEY: Perhaps that explains why his arguments do not seem to make a great deal of sense. What he has said is that the applicant's grounds for appeal are limited basically to an error on the part of the Planning Authority because they are not permitted to introduce any new information. This is unlike the situation in the past where a great deal of new information could be introduced and the point argued in relation to that. Now the person has to go to the Appeals Tribunal and present exactly the same information that was provided to the Planning Authority. This requires the person who is appealing to demonstrate, by reference to conditions in the act or within the planning instrument for that area, that the Planning Authority made the wrong decision. It is a very narrow focus, and it is the only ground on which an applicant can appeal. Mrs Padgham-Purich: It was always ... Mr BAILEY: No. It was much wider than that. Previously, new information could be presented. If we have such a narrow window of opportunity for the applicant to appeal a decision, it would have been quite simple to use that same narrow window of opportunity for third parties to appeal. They are not allowed to introduce new information or to make a completely new appeal against the decision. They can appeal only on exactly the same grounds as the applicant did - in other words, that the Planning Authority was in error because it did not take into account the conditions of the control plan for that area or statutory requirements within the act. These are exactly the same grounds that the applicant can use as the basis for their appeal. Why cannot someone who feels that the Planning Authority was wrong lodge an appeal? A developer can put forward a proposal that is rejected by the Planning Authority. Consequently, the developer changes the proposal, resubmits it and is rejected once again. This might be done 4 or 5 times until eventually some form of the proposal is agreed to. It may be that the successful proposal was accepted for some reason even though it was not consistent with this. If a person in the community believes that the Planning Authority has made a wrong decision, they have no option whatsoever other than to take the matter to the Supreme Court. That is an incredibly expensive process. The applicant can say that the Planning Authority made a mistake, but the rest of the public does not have that right. The minister said that this was a very narrow window of opportunity. All he has to do is to frame legislation that defines this right as being available only to people who have already lodged notice of their disagreement with the proposal and require that they show that they will be significantly affected if the proposal proceeds. Under those conditions, I cannot see how the minister can continue to say that this is an unreasonable request. It would not happen often, but the people of the Northern Territory should have the right to say occasionally that the Planning Authority has made a mistake. 10 680