Keeping Local Councils Local

PMAT supports keeping local councils local – where the local council and community decide on local planning decisions, supported by local services and local jobs.

PMAT does not support the push by the State Government to undermine our democracy by reducing local council and community participation in land use planning and development decisions via:

• Removing assessment and approval of developments from the normal local council process and replacing it with State-appointed Development Assessment Panels (DAPs) conducted by the Tasmanian Planning Commission. Decisions by DAPs will be final;
• Removing merits-based planning appeals via the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, undermining public confidence in the fairness and validity of the planning approval process, reducing the quality and consistency of public decision-making, public administration and government accountability;
• Increasing Ministerial power to overrule councils increasing the risk of corruption and poor planning outcomes;
• Forced council amalgamations, and

The Tasmanian Planning Scheme, which removes opportunities for councils and communities to have a say on future developments. Increasingly, land uses and developments can occur without public consultation or rights of appeal.

These five issues are explained in more detail below.

1. Replacing councils with Development Assessment Panels (DAPs)

Please click here to read more about our key concerns and recommendations, background information, upcoming public events and how you can get involved in helping us #Scrapthe DAP and maintain Tasmania’s democracy – Say yes to a healthy democracy/Say no to the Liberals new Development Assessment Panels. 

2. Removing merit-based planning appeal rights

• If assessment and approval of developments are removed from the normal local council process and replaced by Development Assessment Panels (DAPs) there will be no right for the community to appeal the final decision on a development. That is the opportunity to lodge a merits-based planning appeal to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal will be removed.
• If DAPs replace councils, developments will only be appealable to the Supreme Court based on a point of law or process which are narrow in focus and prohibitively expensive.
• Merit based planning appeals are the only avenue the community has to appeal developments based on planning-related grounds of objection such as height, bulk, scale, density, or appearance of buildings, impacts to streetscapes and adjoining properties including privacy, overlooking, provision of associated infrastructure etc
• Merit-based planning appeals are an important way to increase avenues for the public to engage with planning. 
• Merit based planning appeals are the only avenue the community has to hold decision-makers and developers to account and are an important way to increase avenues for the public to engage with planning.
• Removing merits-based planning appeals also removes the opportunity for mediation and the potential for improving planning outcomes.
• EDO NSW’s research findings (here) demonstrates how removing merits-based planning appeals has the potential to reduce good planning outcomes, both environmental and social.
• Findings from NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), show removing merits-based planning appeals has the potential to increase corruption. ICAC has recommended the expansion of merit-based planning appeals as a deterrent to corruption.

3. Top-down land-use rulings – increased Ministerial power to overrule local councils and force them to commence planning scheme changes

• The Tasmanian Liberal Government proposes legislation to give the Minister for Planning new powers to instruct councils to commence planning scheme changes but perversely, only when a local council has rejected such an application. Currently it is the responsibility of local councils to initiate planning scheme amendments. 
• The new powers would enable the Minister for Planning to instruct councils to commence changes to their planning schemes – like the highly contentious Cambria Green planning scheme amendment on Tasmania’s east coast – and not be the responsibility of local councils as is currently the case. The consequences of top-down land-use rulings might be seen in full only too late, by the generations that follow. 
• Public comment on the proposed legislative changes closed on the 30 November 2023. See PMAT’s submission here and our submission guide here. 
• Giving the Minister for Planning new power to overrule local council decisions is a backward step for Tasmania as it will decrease transparency, increase the politicisation of planning and increase risks of corrupt decisions. 
• Placing the Minister for Planning in the middle of land use planning decision-making and giving one person the power to instruct councils to commence planning scheme changes, is likely to lead to poor planning outcomes.
• It is understood that the proposed legislative changes will form part of the Draft Land Use Planning and Approvals (Development Assessment Panel) Amendment Bill 2024 which will be released for public comment most likely in January 2024, for a minimum of five weeks. The Bill could be tabled in the Tasmanian Parliament anytime from March 2024.
• Elected members in the Tasmanian Parliament have already been called on by the community to oppose the Bill.
• Giving the Minister for Planning new power to overrule local council decisions is a backward step for Tasmania as it will decrease transparency, increase the politicisation of planning and increase risks of corrupt decisions. 
• Placing the Minister for Planning in the middle of land use planning decision-making and giving one person the power to instruct councils to commence planning scheme changes, is likely to lead to poor planning outcomes.
• It is understood that the proposed legislative changes will form part of the Draft Land Use Planning and Approvals (Development Assessment Panel) Amendment Bill 2024 which will be released for public comment most likely in January 2024, for a minimum of five weeks. The Bill could be tabled in the Tasmanian Parliament anytime from March 2024.
• Elected members in the Tasmanian Parliament have already been called on by the community to oppose the Bill.

4. Forced local Council Amalgamations

• The current Tasmanian Government review into the Future of Local Government in Tasmania raises the potential for forced local council amalgamations.
• As outlined in our submission regarding the future of Local Government, it is PMAT’s view is that local council amalgamations should only be voluntary and based on adopting the major elements required for successful amalgamations as outlined in peer-reviewed academic research such as Saving Local Government Financial Sustainability in a Challenging World by Joseph Drew (2022)[1].

The major elements for successful amalgamations are:

• Those wishing to implement reforms must give good reasons and good evidence for acting.

• Alternate treatments should be practised prior to more radical interventions.

• Proposed amalgamations must be designed by bona fide experts, supported by evidence.

• Community consultation must be focused on people, and be conducted in a thorough and genuine manner.

• Amalgamations must be conducted in a morally licit manner. This means that the consent of (at least) the majority of citizens must be given before proceeding. It also means that grants should be made to ensure that no net debt is transferred to taxpayers as a consequence of amalgamations.

• Adequate post-implementation support and review must be considered essential elements to amalgamation success.

A seventh element for successful amalgamations is community homogeneity.

• Community homogeneity – Chapter 4 Boundary Change of Reforming Local Government by Drew (2020)[2], identifies community homogeneity as another critical consideration in successful amalgamations. Drew (2020) states that ‘If communities are relatively homogenous then it is easier for local governments to tailor goods and services to the standard required by residents’ and ‘Indeed, this desirability of community homogeneity tends to act as a limiting factor on size. Analysis of economies of scale might suggest the ‘remedy’ of amalgamation but if the adjoining local government areas are comprised of vastly different communities with very different tastes, then amalgamation might well end in disaster (a good case study is the de-amalgamation of Delatite Shire which occurred as a result of an earlier amalgamation of two completely different demographics; Drew and Dollery 2015[3]).‘In 1994, the Victorian Government instituted a radical council amalgamation program which eliminated over 60% of all local authorities. In the forcibly merged Delatite Shire Council local resentment engendered a sustained grassroots campaign which eventually reversed its contentious compulsory consolidation. The resultant de-amalgamation was the first in modern Australian local government history’.