Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Wednesday 1 October 2008

PLANNING APPEALS AGAINST IRRIGATION INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, the honourable minister talked about the review that is occurring and I am not quite sure whether she identified what stage that review is at. I remember talking to the minister, Steven Kons, I think it was about 18 months ago in relation to this very matter when it came to one of my offices and we had quite a lengthy discussion on this then. I was wondering how long it is going to take and when we can expect to get something back from it.

Ms Ritchie - The next month or so. The submissions are in and I am waiting on a report from the steering committee to come back to me in the next month or so.

Mr DEAN - There is no doubt it is well overdue and people have talked about that and I will not go into detail about that but it is causing problems. It has served us well, there is no doubt about that, but we have moved on. Huge changes have occurred in recent times and the current schemes are not working. We have a number of schemes across this State with 29 councils, and then you have the other schemes on top of that -

Ms Ritchie - It is 39, but we have come down from over 100.

Mr DEAN - I think in a small State like Tasmania we need to get well and truly under the 39.

Ms Ritchie - We accept that too.

Mr DEAN - It would be good to see that happen. It does cause lots of problems for local government. It was interesting when during the Estimates process we raised a number of these issues about the planning review and what stage we were at, it was identified there that currently some consideration has been given to the RPDC's role, RMPAT's role and all of these others and that there could be a combining of a lot of these groups after this review concludes. It may well be in the recommendations and it may well happen. I think the sooner that happens, the better.

In a recent media release I think RMPAT made the comment that many of the matters going to them ought not be there and that it was occurring because elected members were failing to take notice of the advice being given to them by the planning staff, by people involved in the process, that a lot of the appeals ought not be getting to them and that it was creating problems.

Ms Ritchie - Did you say RMPAT put out a media release?

Mr DEAN - I am not quite sure who made the release now. I have a copy of it; there was a reference to RMPAT and I think the RPDC also in that release.

Ms Ritchie - So RMPAT did not put out a media release themselves?

Mr DEAN - I am not quite sure who made it. I have a copy of it and I can get it, where they made that comment.

Ms Ritchie - Thank you.

Mr DEAN - There are a lot of issues there.

I think it has been mentioned before that the motion identifies with third party appeals. Perhaps the member moving the motion might like to touch on that in his summing up at the end because we do know that there are appeals out there being taken by parties directly involved as well, that are seen as being frivolous and vexatious in many situations. So I am wondering why we are restricting to the third party. I can understand why you are relating this to a specific instance on this occasion but I would have thought that there would have been an area there to cover any appeal that might be taken under those conditions and circumstances.

I also take up the honourable minister's comments in relation to the implementation, which I have looked at too. I do not disagree with the comment made there, that another word probably would have been better and 'investigation' is probably the word. There ought to be some investigation of this to see where it goes.

Ms Ritchie - I am not too hung up on it. I appreciate the spirit of the debate. I just had to make that point clear of where I am at with my processes at this point in time.

Mr DEAN - I agree with that but the member moving the motion might like to give some consideration to that and whether or not there ought to be a move to amend the motion to include that word.

Ms Ritchie - I am relaxed about that. I have put my position and I did have a discussion with the honourable member.

Mr DEAN - He indicated that he was not prepared to go down that track or accept that amendment, obviously?

Ms Ritchie - That is right. He is sticking to his guns on that. That is okay.

Mr DEAN - As I understand his motion, there is no attempt here to prevent third-party appeals, it is simply frivolous and vexatious third-party appeals. We know that there needs to be a position there for third parties to make appeals. There is evidence there of people who are infirm, elderly people, people with disabilities and all those other people that are not in a position to make an appeal and therefore somebody else needs to come in and assist them and support them and take it up on their behalf. There certainly is that need for that to occur.

The world is changing and we talked about that - things like climate change and all of these things out there. The environment now is a huge issue for all of us, not just those who become very radical at times; it is a concern for all of us. As has already been mentioned here today, there are people who specifically set up groups that specifically target development and they will appeal against anything and everything, it does not matter what it is. You wonder at times at the real reason for it, and in many instances I would suspect it is probably publicity. I cannot see much other reason for these appeals being taken on because there is no substance in them, as is the case here, the one that we have been referring to involving the Meander Dam and the irrigation there, the Mr Knowles matter. Some of them defy commonsense; I think a lot of them rely on the fact that if they can hold something up long enough for whatever reason the developers will probably back out and forget about it because it becomes very costly. Time is a cost, as we know here with the farmers. Farmers today have soaring costs in everything, fuels, diesel, labour, and fertilisers in particular. The member for Western Tiers would be in a better position to talk about this than I, but cost of fertiliser has become almost prohibitive for farmers.

Mr Hall - Doubled in 12 months.

Mr DEAN - It is just incredible. I could not believe it the other day when I was talking to a farmer from that area, Mr Young in actual fact, whom you might know. He was saying that the cost now is such that they have really seriously to consider whether or not they can use it.

Mr Parkinson - What is the cause of that? It must be some of the ingredients.

Mr DEAN - I am not sure.

Mr Hall - Global demand.

Mr DEAN - Global demand. In fact he did mention that, that it is sought around the world and there is a dearth of fertilisers, I understand as well.

Mr Parkinson - Probably some of the components -

Mr DEAN - Therefore there is the need for farmers today to get the best return from the smallest area that they possibly can, which is what he said to me as well. Once you would have had farmers going into large acreages, and it really was not a huge issue to them, but today there is the cost of working the ground, the cost of the fertilisers, the cost of everything else. Therefore they have to get as big a return as they possibly can from a smaller area, and water is vital for that to occur.

We know that the easier it is made for appeals to be taken the more appeals we will see. I think commonsense tells you that. I want to use a very minor issue to highlight this and it relates to the Launceston City Council and dog issues. It was very easy to ring and make a complaint about a dog barking or a dog at large, often simply to get even with someone or to have a next-door neighbour that they did not like or somebody across the road investigated by the council or the police in some instances. So they changed by-laws to include a deposit so that if you want to make a complaint in that area in relation to a dog issue, one at large or barking, et cetera, you now are required to lodge a deposit. The deposit is fairly small, but that has cut the number of complaints alarmingly.

Mr Finch - Because you have to go to the trouble because of registering your complaint and paying your money.

Mr DEAN - It could be that some legitimate complaints are not being made because of that; yes, I accept that and take that on board. But I would suggest in the main that is not the case because in this case, if the complaint is considered to be reasonable in the circumstances and there is some other evidence to support it, the deposit is refunded in full. In some of these cases where complaints were being made it was found that the people did not even have a dog. That was the stupidity of the whole thing, so something had to be done.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - It might have been a visiting dog.

Mr DEAN - Probably a visiting dog. The honourable minister raised her concerns about a lodgment of a sum of money or whatever it might be.

Ms Ritchie - No, that was the member for Elwick.

Mr DEAN - Sorry, it was the member for Elwick.

Ms Ritchie - What I said was that there was a whole range of propositions put forward, even by honourable members here today on the Floor, and that I think some of them have merit in terms of looking at them. The honourable member for Elwick expressed his concern at the idea of a deposit being required.

Mr DEAN - I do not believe that would really deter too many. With a lot of these complaints, and it may well have been a complaint made by Mr Knowles - I am not saying it was because I do not know - there could well have been a group of people behind that as well. Normally they would pool the money and it is taken on in that way, so in relation to the comment by the member for Elwick I would suggest that that would be very unlikely to stop a genuine, fair dinkum appeal as such because I think the money would be raised for that process to at least commence.

Another issue taken up recently in local government in relation to a development application was where a group of people came together and set themselves up as a group against development in a certain area. They were successful in preventing this development, a fairly recent one, in fact. They turned around to me - and I think there were others there at the time - and said, 'What's next on the agenda? What's the next development coming up in this area, because we're going to appeal it?' I said, 'Wouldn't you like to know what it is about first of all?', and they said, 'No, there's no real concern; we just don't want any development in our area'. Those are the sorts of things that are happening and we have to get on top of it.

Ms Ritchie - Congratulations to Launceston City Council for signing onto the MOU; the regional approach is all part of the process.

Mr DEAN - It is, is it not. The Launceston City Council is a fairly forward-thinking council.

I already mentioned that a lot of these appeals are taken simply for other reasons, like notoriety, publicity and all those things. I do not think there is any doubt about that at all. I am not going to say too much more. I support the motion but I would like to have seen those changes, but the member is not anxious to do that. I understand his concern here. It has been raised by other members that they want to see something happening now so that there are no further hold-ups because of frivolous and vexatious appeals. That is the concern of people. What they are saying is that the longer we procrastinate over this, the more appeals we are going to see.

Ms Ritchie - But the important thing here is that we are looking at it now. That is the point I have raised and that is why I am not worried about getting bogged down over the wording. I just had to put my position.

Mr DEAN - In this instance it was dismissed for those reasons but there was very little publicity on it. This person survives that and goes on and, who knows, the next time something happens there in regard to water et cetera we may well get a similar appeal again. That is the concern, and as the member for the Western Tiers said, it is at huge cost to the farmers. A farmer who is also waiting for connection was saying to me at the weekend that he has to seriously consider his position and where he is going to go. He was trying to estimate the cost to me, the loss that he would incur as a result of this and it really is quite large; in fact, beyond the comprehension of a lot of us who are salary earners, and what it means to their employees and everything else that requires that employment, requires that produce, requires that return. It has a huge impact on many people.

Having said that, even though the member is not going to amend this by the deletion of one word, Madam President, I will be supporting the motion.

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