Despite being roundly rejected by the Parliament and the community last year, the Liberals have renewed their push for Development Assessment Panels with the release of another bill.
Following their previous attempt at legislation for DAPs being voted down by the Legislative Council, we knew the Liberals would be back to try again. However, what we didn’t expect was just how little has changed about their proposal.
The new bill released by the Liberals has all the same issues as their last misguided effort. As such, the Greens maintain our strong opposition to this reform.
Planning Minister Felix Ellis is clearly on a power trip, releasing policy after policy to undermine the state’s planning system. This steamroller approach will deliver worse outcomes for the community and won’t even achieve what the Minister says he wants.
While it’s good to see a longer consultation period for this bill, the real issue is whether the government is actually listening. After all, over 500 submissions were entirely ignored by the Liberals last time around.
If the government was truly interested in consultation on their DAPs bill, they would be open to the possibility of abandoning the policy altogether. Otherwise, this process will once again be nothing more than meaningless lip service.
