Tasmania soon to introduce major projects laws

 The state government’s major projects legislation is likely to pass next week after debate in the Legislative Council was adjourned on Thursday night.

The laws will take projects considered to large or complex out of the hands of local councils for assessment by an expert panel.

If the Planning Minister agrees a development is a major project, the Tasmanian Planning Commission forms an assessment panel to analyse the project and publishes final guidelines for the development.

Labor was unsuccessful in having an amendment included in the legislation to prevent anyone linked with a project who had made a political donation over a three-year period blocked from using the process.

Rumney Labor MLC Sarah Lovell said donation amount would relate to the $13,500 threshold in the Electoral Act. Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council, Leonie Hiscutt, said the amendment had the potential to block out many in the private sector.

She said the matter of political donations was irrelevant to the bill.

Ms Hiscutt said whether or not somebody linked to a major project had provided a political donation had no bearing on decision-making of the independent tribunal

Labor leader Rebecca White expressed disappointment the amendment had not been supported by Legislative Council members.

“The government made no action to progress donation reform in this state so we don’t know who’s donating to political parties and in some cases, we will never know,” she said.

The government this week threatened to kill off the bill if the amendment was passed.

Nelson indendent MLC Meg Webb moved a number of amendments to the bill during the debate which were unsuccessful.

Notable among them was an amendment to impose a two-year ban on assessment of a major project by the expert panel if it had been rejected by the Tasmanian Planning Commission previously. There was also an attempt to remove a minister’s power to appoint anyone to the expert panel, leaving that authority to the Tasmanian Planning Commission.

“The minister is not the expert in these planning processes,” Ms Webb said.

“It’s a political action anytime a minister prescribes for something to be done.”

Some members argued that the minister needed to be part of the process so the government had accountability.

Matt Maloney Examiner/Advocate

Read or watch Meg’s second reading speech on the Major Projects Bill