Mr DEAN (Windermere ) - I have waited for a long time for this and I can get through the rest of the night, hopefully. I have listened to all of the speakers and I do not disagree too much with what has been said and the members have certainly covered it very well. I can certainly count the numbers around this Chamber and I think the RPDC process will get up. I have no real concerns about the RPDC process. I think it will be fair and I think it will give the public plenty of opportunity to have their say and put their position forward so I really have no negative position in relation to that. But whether or not it is a project of State significance is a matter that I want to talk about a little.

It is interesting, with the greatest respect to the member for Elwick, when he says that we should not place too much emphasis on the word 'State'. Well, when you look at the act with which we are dealing it very clearly says, in Part 3, under the heading, 'Integrated Assessment of Projects of State Significance', and then when you go into it further at 16(1):

'For the purposes of this Part, a project is eligible to be a project of State significance if it possesses at least 2 of the following attributes'.

So you cannot take the word 'State' out of this. It is an essential ingredient when you are assessing whether or not a project is one of that sort of State significance.

Mr Martin - Yes, but it does go on to say what you just read there, that it needs two of these seven criteria if it is a project of State significance and that -

Mr DEAN - Yes, I accept that and I was going to go into that. What we have there are eight points and what I would say in relation to that is that there would not be too many projects out there that in some way would not meet two of those criteria at least and I will refer to some of them in a moment. But what I want to do is just look at the word 'significant', for instance. How do we interpret the word 'significance', Mr President, when we are looking at this? What is 'significant'? I suppose you can go to - as I always do - the dictionary to see what it says about the word 'significant'. What the dictionary says is 'something that is important, something worth noting, having some meaning, relevant, appreciable, indicating or implying something'. That is what significant means.

I just want to look at my own area, for instance, the Launceston area and if you look at the much talked about CH Smith development proposal, it very clearly would fit within these criteria, as a project of State significance. If the Government wanted to take that away from the Launceston City Council they could do it.

Ms Thorp - No, they can't.

Mr DEAN - They could.

Ms Thorp - How could they take it away?

Mr DEAN - Well, it would fit into these criteria.

Ms Thorp - You are saying 'take it away' and that is what -

Mr DEAN - If there was reason for it, if the developers put a good position I suppose to the Government to ask the Government to consider it as a project of State significance it would meet the criteria. That is the point I am making.

Ms Thorp - Then it would have to get through both Houses of Parliament.

Mr DEAN - Yes, it would but it would meet the criteria for it to get into the parliamentary system. If you looked at the current gasworks site at Launceston that is another one. That meets a number of the criteria if you looked at that - heritage buildings on the site. It is very significant, in my opinion. Musselroe Bay is another one.

Mr Harriss - Maybe the proponents are happy with the less stringent assessment.

Mr DEAN - No, quite to the contrary. They have every confidence in the council to be able to satisfy and to look at this development appropriately and properly in all of the circumstances. This is what local government was set up to do. One of the essential responsibilities of local government is to look at development applications in their local government areas.

Mr Harriss - If they have jurisdiction.

Mr DEAN - Well, I am not so sure that the Clarence council do not have jurisdiction because when I sought advice on that it was questionable as to whether or not they did and I certainly did not get a categorical statement from them to say that they could not assess this matter.

Mr Harriss - Section 43A is the only way forward through the council.

Mr DEAN - I could look at, as an example of local government, the Seaport development at Launceston. What has that provided? It has provided a number of restaurants. It has provided a large motel complex. It has provided a marina - quite a large marina area there. It has provided apartments, residential units. It is a very significant development. I was not in local government at the time but local government handled that matter under their planning scheme and quite obviously dealt with it appropriately and properly in all the circumstances.

With this development in Ralphs Bay, I think the member for Huon made comment about somebody saying it is just a housing development site. It is not quite that. It is a housing development site with a marina part to it. But it really is not a huge development site. There are other development sites around this State bigger than what is proposed for Ralphs Bay. We heard of one yesterday at Cygnet. I think there was one along here at Rokeby with 800 to 900 homes involved in it. There have been others around the State.

Mr Parkinson - I thought you were being parochial for a minute.

Mr DEAN - No, I refer to other parts of the State. But there are other developments around this State far more significant in size and value than I would suggest that the Ralphs Bay project is. With the Ralphs Bay project, as I understand it, there is a time period of 10 years, is that right, for the whole development to be completed?

Mr Parkinson - It is the potential impacts, though, that are more significant than most other development projects.

Mr Aird - It is the complexity. This is about the incapacity of a local planning scheme to deal with things. There is a conservation zone involved here. There are a lot of decisions to be made and you need absolute, total rigour.

Mr DEAN - I accept that there are complexities there. I accept all of that. But is that a reason to take it away from a local government -

Mr Martin - Half of them asked us to.

Mr Parkinson - Clarence council didn't want it.

Mr DEAN - It was a five-all, wasn't it?

Mr Wilkinson - It was more than that.

Mr DEAN - I thought it was a five-all situation. I think it was the member for Murchison who referred to the position that the media have held in relation to this development, whereas the Advocate and the Examiner were not interested in it at all because they saw it as having no impact on their readers. They sell papers right through the top half of the State which we know is home to more than 50 per cent of the population in Tasmania. So it is a significant part of Tasmania, the population that they service, but they did not see the need for that. The executive summary in Walker Corporation's impact statement or the study they did of course very clearly stated that the media were not interested in coming down to any of the media events that were held in relation to it.

Mr Parkinson - It is a pity because the Examiner is otherwise a very objective newspaper.

Mr DEAN - Yesterday was a very important day I thought and I would have thought that if there was the strong belief around this State that it was a project of State significance, there would have been something in those northern papers this morning, but there was nothing there again, not one piece.

Very clearly a development of the size of the pulp mill, which is a billion dollar-plus project, impacts on the whole State, impacts on the State's road structure, quite obviously, and the economy of the State. It impacts on just about every part of this State in some way and just about every person in this State will be impacted on in some way, and I can accept that is a project of State significance. But I find great difficulty in accepting that what we have here in Ralphs Bay is. A lot of people have spoken to me and said that this is the thin end of the wedge.

Mr Parkinson - Given that it fits in with the statute definition, do you think it is a good process?

Mr DEAN - I have said that I have no problem with the RPDC process. I think it is a good process and I indicated at the beginning it gives the public plenty of opportunity to put their position forward and to have their say. I have no difficulty with the POSS process in itself. As the member for Nelson mentioned, I accept what the Premier said - that he will accept the umpire's decision on this and that he will go on with that. I have no doubt that that will happen, but even if it did not there is still protection for the people because it has to come back to the Parliament and go through both Houses. So there is that absolute and total protection there.

I want to refer to a comment that has been made - and this is one of the concerns of local government - that there is this feeling that the State will remove things from the local government arena as they see fit and as they want to and that at the end of the day local government might not be left with too much. I want to read a comment made by the President of the Australian Local Government Association, Councillor Paul Bell, in the ALGA News, 1 September 2006, and I quote:

'Victoria is leading the way in best practice. ALGA welcomes the trend away from draconian measures by some states to take away planning powers from local government.'

So a lot of local governments in the country have concerns about States removing from them what they see as some of their responsibilities and powers, particularly in the planning area. I will refer to that and I think the member -

Mr Martin - That is Victoria.

Mr DEAN - He was talking on behalf of local governments throughout the country. Mr President, I am not going to take it any further than that other than to say that I have great difficulty in accepting that this is a project of State significance. I believe it is a local government issue and that local government could have handled it quite capably. At the end of the day I have concerns about where this is going to lead and unless the Leader is very convincing in his answer to the debate I may well have to oppose the motion.

Mr Harriss - He will be convincing, don't worry!