Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I will try not to repeat too much of what has been said and I will keep it as short as I can. I find this very interesting from a number of points of view. I will take up one of the last point's made by the member for Western Tiers. That is, these position and decisions ought not to come down to a number of aldermen or a number of councillors sitting around a table making a decision. It ought to be abundantly clear within the policy and the guidelines, and it may well be in the guidelines, as to where these matters sit and fit because you could have councillors seeing things totally differently. Why should it come down to the whim of those people, sitting around a table, to make that decision as to whether or not you can do a particular thing on your land or on that land?

Mr Gaffney - Doesn't it come down to the planning officer to put a recommendation on it?

Mr DEAN - The planning officer makes a recommendation too, in accordance with the policy and in accordance with the guidelines and in accordance with the planning scheme. But the aldermen and the councillors around that table have a position where they do not have to accept that position at all from the planning officers and invariably they do not accept it.

Mr Gaffney - In my council they are not qualified planners, so they would accept that recommendation.

Mr DEAN - The Launceston City Council are good examples of where there are many occasions that they do not accept the guidance and the position put forward by the planning officers. They do not accept it.

Ms Forrest - There needs to be clear guidelines.

Mr DEAN - That is right.

Mr Harriss - There is nothing unreasonable about that.

Mr DEAN - No, I do not think there is anything unreasonable about that either, I do not at all, because people interpret things differently. I find it difficult that a council would accept everything that comes in from a planning officer as being the right position.

Madam President, the member for Murchison mentioned the language used and the way in which it is used and the looseness of the language right through this policy. I will quote from a document received from a very eminent, qualified barrister in this State who provides a lot of support and assistance to local governments and lots of organisations in this city:

'The PAL policy should be self operating according to its terms and cannot effectively be modified and further refined by some provision which enables another statutory authority to determine the content of its operation. As to what this means for council planning schemes' decision making, I do not think that ultimately councils will be able to more flexibly interpret the PAL policy. It should be drafted with certainty. It should be capable of application for the facts of individual development applications. In that regard, it should be amended to delete its present loose language, but I feel none of this will happen. The present PAL policy is uncertain and very difficult to apply. It is not different to the State coastal policy.'

I think the honourable member for Western Tiers mentioned that coastal policy.

'The problem with each of these documents is that although they express well intentioned objectives, the wording leaves much to be desired.'

That is from a barrister who is very much involved in land planning issues and, as I said, provides a lot of advice within this State. So he has concerns about the looseness of the language and the way in which the document is written and that I think coincides with the member for Murchison and the other members who have spoken here today.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Would you take it from what he said in that that he could not defend the council through a legal process with the wording of this document as it stands? Is that your understanding?

Mr DEAN - That is my personal understanding of that document, having read it. He could not and he would find himself in a very difficult position if he had to.

Madam President, I just want to refer to three other documents, and first of all the Launceston City Council's. Councils were asked to make a submission in relation to the policy moving forward and the Launceston City Council, I suspect like many others, had to get an extension of time to put that submission in because of the time frames that were involved and they were given that extension. The Launceston City Council in their submission identified several areas and the policy that we are currently debating may just pick up one or two of them. I want to read some of the points that were identified by the Launceston City Council that needed to be addressed, and I quote from the submission that was put into the RPDC in relation to this matter:

'Point 1 - Council understands the State policy on PAL 2007 to be a set of objectives and principles to foster sustainable agriculture in Tasmania and that the original intent of the policy was to safeguard key elements of the rural economy such as employment, provision of agricultural services, cropping, grazing, red meat, dairy and wool production.

Point 2 - Council has concerns that managed investment schemes - MIS - driven acquisition of farmland for plantations does not support the intent of the PAL policy.

Point 3 - Council understands through recent correspondence with the Department of Justice that no research has been undertaken to ascertain the impact on rural economies from the loss of family farms due to MIS plantation expansion.

Point 4 - Council recommends that research is undertaken immediately to quantify the social and economic impact of MIS plantation expansion on rural communities in northern Tasmania.'

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - The Federal Government should pay for that. That's their issue.

Mr DEAN - Absolutely, I could not agree more. To continue quoting from that document:

'Point 5 - Council recommends that if it is shown that rural communities are negatively impacted or that key elements of a rural economy such as employment, provision of agricultural services, cropping, grazing, red meat, dairy and wool production are threatened by MIS plantation expansion then the RPDC should recommend the action that could be taken by local, State and Federal governments to mitigate against this.

There is a view that other options and trends in agriculture should have been exposed as part of this review. Maybe they were, but they did not come through in documents available for inspection.'

They raise some interesting issues there around that council table and as much as I am a member of that council I cannot say that I necessarily agreed with all of those points. I did not, but that is the position that the council ended up with.

Ms Forrest - That's democracy.

Mr DEAN - That is democracy, absolutely.

Has the social and economic side of this been adequately addressed? The people I have spoken to within the Launceston City Council are not satisfied that it has been.

Ms Forrest - And also how it's assessed.

Mr DEAN - Yes, absolutely right.

Mr Parkinson - I do not want to stop you but before you finish can you move to adjourn the debate because I want to organise a briefing.

Mr DEAN - It might be a good time now because I was going to go on to another document.

Mr Parkinson - I think you lose your right to continue if you adjourn the debate now.

Mr Aird - No.

Mr DEAN - Madam President, I move -

That the debate be adjourned.

Debate adjourned.

[5.11 p.m.]
Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Thank you for the briefing, it certainly cleared up a number of points and gave us the opportunity to raise a number questions and discuss a number of points that were impacting on me to some degree.

It has been suggested to us that the TFGA were almost in agreement with this whole policy. I do not think that is absolutely right, from the document that I have in front of me that I received from the TFGA. The member for Western Tiers received the same document. To make this perfectly clear, I need to read the contents of this document into Hansard and I intend to do exactly that.

It is headed, 'TFGA Overview of the Prime Agricultural Land (PAL) Policy'. Points raised in the TFGA submission are:

'The TFGA fully supports the principle of a State Policy that protects land resource availability and promotes certainty for agricultural production into the future. The challenge is to recognise and strike a balance between the need to maintain an effective sector wide agricultural land base as a whole, and the need to allow individual farmers the flexibility to manage the land to best commercial.

The TFGA believes that the intent of the Objectives of the PAL Policy supports this philosophy.

Objectives -

1. To enable the sustainable development of agriculture by minimising:

(a) conflict with or interference from other land uses; and

(b) non agricultural use or development of agricultural land that precludes the return of that land to agricultural use.

2. The definition of "agricultural use" contained in the current Protection of Agricultural Land Policy should be maintained.

The Definition has been maintained and includes Plantation Forestry. However, Plantation Forestry, whilst recognised as an agricultural use has been prohibited on Prime Agricultural Land unless a planning scheme reviewed in accordance with the PAL Policy, allows the use. This is in conflict with the TFGA's submission that states that "We do not think that regulation of plantations as an agricultural land use through the PAL is warranted". The TFGA's Plantations on Farmland Policy states this very strongly.

This is, in fact, in conflict with Principle 2 - Use or development of prime agricultural land should not result in unnecessary conversion to non agricultural use or agricultural use not dependent on the soil as the growth medium.

3. The Policy should provide for farmers to build additional dwellings or other farm related infrastructure on farms, as required by those enterprises and in locations best suited to farm enterprise needs, and there needs to be consistency between Local Government Councils in this regard.

Principle 5 provides a mechanism for this to occur - Residential use of agricultural land is consistent with this Policy where it is required as part of an agricultural use or where it does not unreasonably convert agricultural land and does not confine or restrain agricultural use on or in the vicinity of that land.

4 The Policy should present an orderly and consistent approach to regulating the subdivision of rural land on the basis of zoning that separates "rural living" from "rural production". This statement was aiming to differentiate between the lifestyle market and commercial rural production. It is possible that Principles 2, 5 and 7 are relevant to this issue, however, the policy is unclear and ambiguous as to how this matter would be dealt with.

Agricultural use does not outline what is a commercially viable enterprise so therefore a hobby farmer could be classified as agricultural use. Consequently, hobby farmers could establish a residential dwelling and carve up prime agricultural land according to the policy. Principle 7 outlines that where land is classed as non-prime agricultural land conversion to non-agricultural use can occur once a local and regional significance of that land for agricultural use is determined. It is unclear as to who has to consider the local and regional significance and no standards for this task are set.

5. The revised Protection of Agricultural Land Policy needs to provide for strong controls on the capacity of land owners in farming districts, to fetter bona fide farming activities on other properties in those districts.

The objectives of the policy, as stated above, strongly support this point. Principles 4 and 9 address this.

Principal 5 - Residential use of agricultural land is consistent with this Policy where it is required as a part of an agricultural use or where it does not unreasonably convert agricultural land and does not confine or restrain agricultural use on or in the vicinity of that land.

Principle 9 - Planning schemes must not prohibit or require a discretionary permit for an agricultural use on land zoned for rural purposes where that use depends on the soil as the growth medium, except as prescribed in Principles 10 and 11.

6. There must be a greater consistency between municipalities and efficient decision-making processes. A logical starting point is an audit of all Tasmania's 49 planning schemes.

The policy does not address this issue as implementation is not outlined in the policy. Inconsistency in interpreting the policy presents the greatest risk to the policy being effective.'

I thought it was important to read that in because that is clearly the TFGA's position and there are a number of areas where they are not satisfied with the PAL policy moving forward. I think to say that they were more or less happy with the situation is not quite reflective of their position as I have been advised - and the member for Western Tiers was also provided with that document.

I have just received another comment here and I will quote from an e-mail which I have not had a chance to really digest.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Via Chamber mail, was it?

Mr DEAN - It came by Chamber mail, but it is from the TFGA. I will read the content of this e-mail:

'We have reviewed the policy against our original submission. We still feel that the greatest risk with this policy is how individual councils will interpret the guidelines and implement them through their planning schemes.'

Very clearly, there are a number of issues of concern and in this instance the TFGA are not sure how councils will interpret the policy in a number of areas. That is always a difficulty moving forward when you have 29 councils interpreting how a policy or a scheme will apply.

If this is not supported we are told that the planning schemes will still stand within local government areas and those planning schemes have taken into account the interim PAL policy. So that would still continue in that vein until obviously a PAL policy was put into place - another one, a new one, or this one amended, I do not know . It is not our fault that this matter comes to us four days before the interim policy expires. It is not our fault. That is none of our doing whatsoever.

We have been told today that this policy has been hanging around in other areas for quite a considerable time. We started to debate this on Wednesday and it expires on Saturday. That does not pressure me, and it should not pressure anybody else in this Chamber, to make a decision simply because the policy will conclude on Saturday. Very clearly it will not impact on me and the decision that I am going to make - not at all. That has not been of our doing in any way. This is not the first time this has happened; it happens on many occasions.

I often wonder if it is done by design. I just wonder why it happens so regularly. If it only happened every now and again I could understand. But it happens on a fairly regular basis. The TOTE is another one where I was very annoyed and upset with the way that came to us for a quick decision. I moved for a deferment of that item but unfortunately I did not get the support that I needed. There are a number of other occasions where this sort of thing has happened.

It does not pressure me at all. I have a position on it and at this stage I will listen to anyone else who is going to speak on this. I am not satisfied at this stage one way or the other. I enjoyed parts of the briefing today, I thought that it was good and it certainly clarified a number of points for me, but there are still a number of issues. The policy that we are now debating that has not gone back through the councils, and whilst it is not dissimilar to the interim policy, there are changes and there are differences in it. I can understand now the concerns and issues that will occur within the council of which I am an alderman when they get this and start discussing it and going into some detail with it.

I can understand now what some of the comments will be coming from that meeting. I do not think that it is the right way to go. I think it is a fairly ordinary and poor way to do business. Having said that, I will now listen to the remainder of the debate.