Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I intend to make a reasonably brief contribution to this matter. In doing so I wish to quote from a letter that was written to yourself as President of this House by the Launceston City Council and signed by the General Manager of that council and by the Mayor. Reading this puts into context somewhat the way some of the individual councils see these bills.

In this instance, Monday week ago, this matter was raised in the agenda of the Launceston City Council's public meeting and if it had not been for myself in this place, it would not have come to the notice of some of the aldermen of that council at all. They would not have known about this bill. They had heard about it and read about it in the paper and so on but they would not have had an opportunity to have seen what is in this bill. That is somewhat concerning. I know that the Local Government Association are aware of it and there was a meeting in relation to it but the aldermen frowned on it.

As a result of that and comments made by one member of that council who is very closely connected with the Greens and who was very vocal in relation to this bill and where it is going and what it does - putting up suggestions that it undermines local government, it is taking away from local government opportunities that they have previously had in planning et cetera, et cetera.

I wish to quote from that letter. It relates to another bill that will come into this House at a later stage. It was written on 5 June 2009 following that meeting and addressed to yourself, Madam President:

'Dear Sue

Changes to Planning Legislation

Please find attached the letter sent to Mr Peter Fischer, State Planning Advisor earlier this week.

Council has grave concerns about the proposed new Planning Legislation.

We are concerned about the lack of consultation and rushed time lines in the final stages of the drafting of this legislation. We call for greater time for consultation with key groups like local government. We are concerned about the erosion of Planning Authority (Council) planning powers. We question the need for Projects of Regional Significance - there are mechanisms that already exist for dealing with major projects.

Operationally, there are issues around conditions crossing municipal boundaries and who enforces compliance. The role of the Minister in Planning Process seems to have increased.

In regard to the changes to the Commission (Tasmanian Planning Commission), we question how the TPC can both advise the Minister and provide an assessment service at arms length to Government. All the issues previously raised by Launceston City Council and LGAT seem to have been brushed aside in the current drafts.

We seek an opportunity to brief the Legislative Council or, at the very least, to have our concerns put before the Legislative Council.'

As I said, that was signed by the Mayor of Launceston City Council and by the General Manager, Mr Dixon. There are some concerns that these issues are not coming through in the way that they should be for the discussion at a level that is necessary. That is, that the aldermen who are very much a part of this process do not really get to see or understand or know what is going on and hence they are not having a say in any of these issues and they ought to.

As the member for Western Tiers said, planning is a very complex process. There is no doubt about that. I would certainly support any move to have aldermen and councillors trained in this area on those people coming into a council. It is a huge area.

The other issues I wanted to touch on is that through the bill - and there has been comment made about the lack of resources - the lack of resources in the RPDC for instance, lack of experts in the right areas for them to be able to undertake the duties that they should be able to undertake.

In actual fact there was a very recent press release, I think I may have left the press release in my office but it was a press release from the RPDC in, I think it was August 2008 but it was in 2008 where they did make a statement to the effect that they were suffering because of a lack of suitable personnel to work within that area.

They did not have the people with the expertise that was necessary and that was frustrating them and causing them concerns. They apologised also in that article because of their inability at that time to process some of the things as quickly as they ought to have done in relation to changes to planning schemes that councils were requesting.

That has been one of the issues, while I am on that, that councils have been frustrated at times because of changes that they have needed to the planning schemes going through this process and the process taking so long to action those amendments that have been necessary and the changes to the planning schemes and so on. It has really caused a lot of frustration and a lot of concern to local government. Not only is there a lack of resources within the RPDC but local government also suffer the same problems in the area of planning.

It has been mentioned in this Chamber, Madam President, on a number of occasions. Launceston City Council was the same as any other council - they have problems and struggle to get people into their planning division of the council. In actual fact they have gone as far afield as Scotland to attract a person into that area.

What happens is that when they get them they are then poached by private enterprise. They cannot keep them hence they have this problem of lack of staff and once again their inability to do the things that they need to do. The George Town Council is probably a good example of that, where 12 to 18 months ago they were relying on planning staff from the Launceston City Council. But that had to stop because the Launceston council were unable to keep up with their own work. So there are these shortages throughout these areas.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - No amalgamation with George Town for Launceston?

Mr DEAN - I think the mayor of George Town said that there would not be any amalgamations with the Launceston City Council as well. In actual fact his suggestion was that the Launceston City Council should look at its numbers and reduce the number of its aldermen in the first instance before they talk about amalgamations. I am not quite sure where that comes into it but that was the suggestion made by the mayor of George Town. I do not disagree with it.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - A very astute gentleman, Doug Burt.

Mr DEAN - He certainly is. There is no doubt about that. I do not disagree with his observations that there ought to be a decrease of some of the numbers within some of the councils.

Madam President, I did refer to the RPDC media release that was made. I do have it. I will quote a couple of passages from that document. This was in the Examiner. It was released in on 26 August 2008. I quote:

'"There is a limited stock of people with the knowledge and expertise," an RPDC spokeswoman said ...

Whilst some councils have expressed concern at the time it takes for new planning schemes and amendments to be approved, the spokeswoman admitted there had been slight delays for some decisions.'

I will make another quote from this press release because it really does sum it up to some degree, and there is a lot of truth in it:

'However, councils could be to blame for exacerbating the RPDC's workload.

Of the 134 amendments finalised by the RPDC last year, almost 80 per cent required changes or were refused and a similar percentage is expected this year.

The spokeswoman said it was often the result of councils making political decisions and not always taking notice of their professional planning staff, who must make recommendations based on the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act and any State policies.'

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - It is called public pressure.

Mr DEAN - Having sat in on local government issues now for a number of years and having dealt with a number of planning issues I do not entirely disagree with that statement at all. But it does raise some issues. Things have had to change. There is no doubt in my mind. The processes have been fairly slow. I personally have support for the current position that we are moving down. I think that generally is the position of councils as well. But they did raise that one issue, which I referred to in the letter I quoted from in relation to the minister and the fact that they also have to judge these issues. So it is a reasonably interesting issue, to be an adviser and a judge. I think that is an area that needs straightening out. I would be interested to see if the Leader is able to make any comment on that in his answer to the debate.