It has been revealed that the NSW Labor government’s decision to remove the powers of regional elected councillors to determine development applications (DAs) is not based upon ICAC recommendations, as claimed by the minister, and appears to be based upon a discussion paper that is eight years old.
A major overhaul of the state’s top planning act (the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979) was adopted last week. One major change is the creation of local planning panels, which will replace the current decision-making powers of councillors and regional planning panels.
Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully confirmed this on 19 November with The Echo, and said that only the new local planning panels, and Council planning staff, will be authorised to approve or reject DAs.
The Echo sought clarity from ICAC as to the exact ICAC recommendations the government was implementing.
An ICAC spokesperson replied, ‘The establishment of local planning panels was pursued by the then NSW government in late 2017, and came into effect only for Sydney Metropolitan, Wollongong and Central Coast councils in March 2018’.
‘The legislation introduced by the then-government flagged their introduction as combating corruption.
‘The then-Department of Planning & Environment discussed establishing local planning panels with the Commission [ICAC] in 2017, and sought advice on their procedures in December 2017 after the legislation had been debated and passed in Parliament.
‘While the Commission discussed local planning panels as independent hearing and assessment panels in its 2007 publication, Corruption risks in NSW development approval processes, it did not make any recommendation to the NSW Government mandating their adoption. The Commission has also not made any specific recommendation arising from an investigation report. Therefore, we cannot confirm what the recommendations are that are referred to in the statement’, they added.
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