Ms O’CONNOR – Mr President, I certainly will not be supporting this bill either. Nor did we downstairs. We fought strongly against it. It has been a really interesting debate. I very much empathise with my colleague and seat partner, the member for Mersey, in this situation, the person in this room who is most deeply connected to that community, which has expressed a want and a need, connected to the council which has passed the development and told us that it strongly supports this development. I really respected the thoroughness of your contribution, honourable member. I totally understand why you would vote for this bill, even knowing that it is highly problematic.
All of us here, ultimately, are here to serve our communities and try to make good laws in their interest. We are being put in a really invidious position here where parliament has been asked, and in fact by the developer, demanded to be the planning authority. We are evidently and obviously not, and do not have the skills or capacity to be.
In response to the member for Launceston’s contribution, which again was very considered and thoughtful, this is the precedent. You explained that really well by delineating between the legislation that effectively enabled Parliament Square, and the bill that we are debating today. I will put it on the record again – we did not support the Parliament Square legislation.
It is important again to remind ourselves of what is happening here. The Tasmanian Planning Commission rejected this development. The Planning Commission, which we have some responsibility to defend the independence of, rejected the development on its merits. I totally agree. In fact it has been pointed out, not just by the member for Launceston and others and Brian Risby[okay] – who I have a lot of time for because he helped us to save Ralphs Bay back in the day – but also by LGAT, that there are huge problems, clunkiness, inefficiency, and vagueness about our Land Use Planning and Approvals Act, and under that those land use planning strategies which have come into play in this decision. Obviously, we need to reform LUPAA.
I understand it is hard for councils and LGAT to make planning sexy in terms of making it media‑worthy, and building the case for change, which you need to do to make government act. Planning has such a profound impact on all our lives, so it is important that we do. We, the Greens, would love to see LUPAA properly reformed so it has a much stronger sustainability lens, for example, and a much better capacity to protect public participation and the ecosystems, the soil, air and water that sustain us. Until we can get the conversation to the level where the state government is really listening, we will be put into this situation.
What has happened here is that a developer, who reminds me a lot of Lang Walker from Walker Corporation, who swanned in in his white shoes back in the early 2000s and told us over on the eastern shore that we needed a 500-home canal estate inside the Ralphs Bay Conservation Area. He proceeded to try to woo and bully that community, all while having the ear of government, which declared that project a project of state significance, and introduced legislation to shrink the size of the Ralphs Bay Conservation area so you could fit a canal estate in. It was that same kind of almost sneering arrogance towards the local community.
I felt that this morning at the table with the CEO, Mr Spanton. I felt that at the table this morning, that we were being treated like provincials. If you have a look at that ad in the paper the other day –
Ms Forrest – Today.
Ms O’CONNOR – Today, sorry. We were being -splained to by an interstate developer about our planning system, our laws, what our community needs.
Ms Forrest – What we fear, what we do not like, what we are thinking.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, what we do not like. I thought it was an interesting take. Then he had the hide to draw a democratic parallel here by saying this legislation was by the people and for the people. We in here represent communities all over the island, who expect us to uphold the independence of the planning system, make sure it is well‑resourced and make sure that it has the tools to do its job properly. I found the developer’s conduct, as others have pointed out, insulting. He did not win himself any friends – or certainly he did not win himself me as a friend.
I am sorry I was not in the room when the question was asked about donations. Here we have a potential clear line of sight to the position that we are in. We have no confirmation, as the member for Nelson said, about how much Tipalea donated to individual candidates or a party. I am not clear in my mind if he was talking about donating in Tasmania. That is a question that we probably should clear up in our own minds.
I am pleased to let the Council know that the House of Assembly has just passed the Greens’ bill which has lowered the donation disclosure threshold from the current $5000 to $1000, in line with the Senate inquiry and community expectations. That bill will come before this place. Efforts to fortify our democracy have to be ceaseless.
We have to watch out for developers who think that they can swan in and tell us how it is going to be. It is not unlike Gil McLachlan swanning in in his suit a couple of years ago and telling us about the stadium that we were going to have, that is going to consign generations of Tasmanians to a debt that they cannot afford. It is the same mentality. Time and again Tasmanians have shown that we are our own people, with our own voice and our own institutions that we should defend.
It is highly regrettable that it feels like government and this place has been a bit bullied into this situation. Although, I am pretty sure that the Liberals, and particularly the planning minister and local member, Mr Ellis, have been working on this bespoke bill for the developer for some time, certainly a lot longer than when the ad went in the paper on 12 November 2024, calling for special legislation. Labor comes out the next day, says it will support it. The next thing you know, government announces the Stony Rise Approval Bill. This does not just circumvent the planning system, it subverts it, because the TPC has made a lawful decision and rejected the development on its merits.
That may be because the land use planning strategies in place are outdated and need improvement and strengthening, so they are more adaptive to a region which is clearly growing and needs services. We have been put in a position where a single developer can get in the ear of the local member who happens to be the Planning minister, and suddenly we have this legislation before us. It is highly regrettable. It opens the door to future such bespoke legislation. Some of which will have a foundation of corruption because the developer will walk in and go, ‘Oh, we have this political support fund we would like to contribute towards your election campaign. Of course, we expect nothing in return’.
Of course, we know that there is nearly always a quid pro quo. Look at the situation that we are in with the gambling industry. Here we are, after an industry utterly corrupted an election and bought government in 2018. We had a previous responsible minister who was prepared to stand up to that gambling industry and make sure we had harm minimisation, mandatory pre-commitment cards in place in order to prevent harm and save people’s lives. Well, the donations won in the end, did they not? Follow the money, and here we are.
Obviously, it is a precedent. As the member for Hobart, I have been part of campaigns to protect kunanyi since I was a young adviser to the former member for Denison, Duncan Kerr. That is when one of the first cable cars bubbled up. The community fought that off, and it kept bubbling up. It is an unpopular and divisive development in this community. It has been knocked back by the council. It is a proposal to totally desecrate the mountain in moneyed interests. Given that it cannot get through the planning system, will we be back here after the government’s review is finished, with nice bespoke legislation to approve the Mt Wellington Cable Way cable car? It is not off the table.
Will we be back in here when some developer who cannot get their expression of interest development up inside a public protected area wants bespoke legislation so they can have their huts in one of – if not the – last great coastal wildernesses in the world, along the South Coast Track? A special piece of legislation? Hell, this place has done it before. I am not just talking about Council. I am talking about the parliament.
Should this bill pass, and I hope it does not, it will have set the precedent. It is done. Should this bill pass, you can almost guarantee that we will be back here for a development which has failed the planning tests and failed to secure a social licence, potentially. Again, we need to see this legislation in the context of the three that we are dealing with over these two days. We have a Planning minister who is a touch out of control. I said it earlier: he is a bit tipsy on power.
We have three bills here. The first one gave him special powers over permit extensions. This one is electorate based. Then we have the development assessment panels. Each of them is taking a brick out of the foundations of our planning system. Each of them is designed to alienate the independence of the planning system and public participation. The problem is, if we become the planning authority, what happens if we make a bad decision? What happens if parliament approves by statute a development which could not pass the planning test for good reason and then it turns out to be a dangerous development, or a really destructive development, dodgy, corrupt, who is held accountable then? I argue that the parliament should be, if the parliament passed legislation which enabled a development that caused harm in some way or another.
The minister, Mr Ellis, can talk about taking the politics out of planning but he has inserted himself right into the planning system as a planning overlord. That is his wish anyway. This bill is a very political bill. Let us be realistic about that. I think that the developer, not having got through the planning commission, decided they were not going to try to adapt anything about what they were proposing. They had one crack at it and then thought, no, it is too hard. We could not be bothered. This planning system is provincial and we are going to ask the minister for legislation.
It is not an excuse. It is not good enough to say this happens in other places. Just because you have ministers who can approve developments in Victoria does not make it right. It does not make it a good process because it is not a good process. Any minister is just one person. Yes, they will seek advice, they will talk to the state planning office or whatever but, ultimately, if we have a legislative response that vests – and this is across all portfolios – too much power in any one minister, it is a recipe for disaster. That is why you always have to make sure parliament is playing its proper role.
Ms Forrest – It is why we should have two shareholder ministers for every GBE.
Ms O’CONNOR – Very good point, member for Murchison. Absolutely, because even within that dynamic –
Ms Rattray – I am pretty sure there were two for TasPorts and TT-Line.
Ms Forrest – No, not for TT-Line. TasPorts did have because it is legislated. That is off the point.
Ms O’CONNOR – Even with two ministers as shareholder ministers at least there may be some policy tension, or creative tension, or just another set of eyes.
I really feel for the Devonport community being put in this situation where we are having an argument over a shopping centre that they really want and need. I feel for the council, which made a decision to approve the development in good faith. I feel for the planning commission that established a panel of three and rigorously went through the permit and the approval, and on the merits, with the the regional planning strategies and the Devonport city plan in front of them, made a decision to reject this development. Because we are being asked to be the planning authority, we cannot test the claims about whether it fits, whether that place that is proposed for this development is the right place, which I gather, the regional land use strategy said it was not.
However, we, as MLCs, are being asked to make an impossible decision. I have never been asked to be a planning authority in my life. I do not like it. I am not going to participate in that. Obviously, I will vote against this legislation. I believe it is going to be a close vote in here, but I think I have done the numbers.
I will fill members in on a bit of interesting information. I guess it is a Tasmanian story really. I will not name this person because it is not fair, but one of the principal consultants for Tipalea who provided submissions and content that made up part of the permit application, and also the Tasmanian Planning Commission decision, now works in the Planning minister’s office. Isn’t that neat? I am not saying there is anything untoward here, but it is noteworthy. Just as I think it is noteworthy that the CEO of Tipalea has quite boldly apparently admitted to seeking to influence political outcomes through donations. Let us be clear, that is what political donations are: they are an attempt to to influence an outcome. From developers, that is certainly what they are.
I grew up in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland, where the influence of – it was a completely corrupt state. I cannot imagine there was any kind of independent planning system in place. You only have to look at the Gold Coast and see what they did to that place. Well, you cannot look at it because they took the wrecking ball to it to put up skyscrapers. When you are in government, you want to be very careful about who you take money from.
Anyone in politics should be careful about it, obviously, but when you have your hands on the levers, and when you are in a capacity to do favours – and this bill is a favour – there is a particular risk if you are not mindful of avoiding conflicts of interest, avoiding the potential for accusations of undue influence or corruption.
I will not be supporting this bill. I hope more members decide not to support this bill. I really feel that this will be one of the biggest mistakes that this Council will make in this term because the precedent is most certainly being set.
