The Liberals’ decision to abandon much-needed Reserve Activity Assessment reform is bittersweet news.
For almost a decade, there have been calls to reform the Reserve Activity Assessment process, so for the Minister to say people are strongly supportive of retaining the present provisions is ridiculous.
The Government has missed another opportunity to provide a reformed, transparent, statutory process for the assessment of works and development on public land, with a right to merit appeal, and all completed assessments published publicly. This could have gone a long way in providing certainty in the system for the community, Parks, and proponents.
In addition, there are now significant questions and concerns around the Minister’s plan to “improve coordination” between the non-statutory Reserve Activity Assessment process and the planning permit application under the statutory LUPA process.
However, at the very least, the Liberals have not weakened the process, as the initial reform proposals would have done.
The Reserve Activity Assessment plays an important role in protecting the unique values of Tasmania’s public land and National Parks, ensuring it remains a robust and transparent process.
If the Liberals were genuine about the integral, sustainable management of our parks and reserves, they would dump their policy of privatising parks and properly fund the Parks and Wildlife Service.
