Recent moves by both the New South Wales and Victorian Governments, and in September changes by the Western Australian Government to its Planning and Development Bill, indicate that State Governments are starting to work more closely with Local Government on the vexed issue of planning controls. Local Government Associations across the nation have argued long and hard on behalf of their council members to protect local responsibility for planning matters. The local council and its community are key stakeholders in contentious planning proposals because, long after the developer has left with money in the bank, it is the local community that has to live, and deal with daily, the consequences of bad planning decisions.
In Western Australia, clauses in the Planning and Development Bill, giving the WA Planning Commission power to amend local planning schemes or determine development applications, have now been withdrawn after lengthy lobbying of the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure and other Members of Parliament by the Western Australian Local Government Association.
In New South Wales, the Local Government and Shires Associations have welcomed the Carr Government’s recent announcement that it will reduce and streamline planning definitions and zonings. However, then President of the Local Government Association, Councillor Sara Murray, said that the Associations remain vehemently opposed to private certification. She predicts increasing problems over the next decade culminating with private certifiers not being able to get insurance.
In Victoria, the recent decision to set height limits for residential streets has been welcomed by the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) and Victorian Local Governance Association.
Providing more certainty for councils and their communities, MAV President, Councillor Geoff Lake, said this move by the State Government is significant recognition of Local Government’s status as the planning authority with the mandate to determine areas where local amenity should be protected, while concentrating future high rise development to designated activity centres.
These moves by the respective State Governments to work with Local Government to achieve a win win situation are a step in the right direction in intergovernmental relations. However, cost shifting still looms as a major hurdle, including the Federal Government’s role in this practice. Former Mayor and now Independent MP in New South Wales, Richard Torbay, soon found calls by Local Government for funding fairness continues to fall on deaf ears of all the major parties in this State (refer page 6).
The return of the Howard Government with an increased majority, and control of both Houses, may mean it will take on the States with greater gusto in regard to cost shifting. However, its own cost shifting practices may prove to be its Achilles’ heel.
