On the 26 February 2025, the Planning Minister released the hugely contentious and anti-democratic draft Development Assessment Panels (DAPs) Bill for public consultation for a second time.

The changes made to the second version of the DAPs Bill are insignificant as they are so slight, they have no practical effect.

“The Government has brought back this highly contentious Bill, despite 92% of the almost 500 submissions received on the first version of the anti-democratic Bill in 2024 were opposed.  The DAPs Bill was so flawed, every council in Tasmania voted against it and it was voted down in the Legislative Council on the last sitting day of Parliament last year,” said Sophie Underwood, State Director of the Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania (PMAT).

The proposed Bill will also allow radical changes to how Tasmania protect its heritage buildings, national parks and public open spaces from being overtaken by developers.

“The statement in Minister Ellis’s media release that ‘we are ensuring Tasmanians can have a greater say in the development assessment process, with public hearings for each and every application’ is just insulting to the hundreds of Tasmanians that voiced their disapproval of the earlier version of the DAPs legislation and demanded retention of planning appeal rights,” said Peter McGlone, CEO, of the Tasmanian Conservation Trust

“The hearings that the Minister refers to can be cancelled by the DAPs and representations can be declared frivolous which removes the right to attend the hearings,” says Mr McGlone. “The Minister is trying in vain to paint undemocratic legislation as an improvement, which must be aggressively opposed by Tasmanians.”

Ms Underwood said that public consultation closes on the 24 April 2025, and that she predicts The Bill will be debated in Parliament in early May 2025. The focus will be on the Legislative Council who will have the ultimate say. PMAT will be encouraging the seven independents and one Greens to vote against the DAPs Bill.

“The Government is proposing again to take developments out of the normal planning process and assessed by DAPs, removing councils from having a say over approvals and removing planning appeal rights and with that, the voice of the community, voters and rate payers,” Ms Underwood said.

“Property developers can put in a request to the Planning Minister to bypass Councils, the community and the planning appeals tribunal and have their development assessed by a DAP. The Planning Minister decides if a development can be assessed by a DAP.

Peter McGlone also criticised the Government’s attempt to address the weaknesses of DAPs, stating that ‘The undefined DAP criteria mean that the Minister can apply them to all possible types of developments with no checks on his arbitrary powers. The Government’s claim to have improved the legislation by removing one ‘ambiguous or subjective criteria’, i.e. ‘controversial’ is highly misleading as all other ‘ambiguous or subjective criteria’ remain in the new draft legislation e.g. councils have a ‘perceived conflict of interest’ or ‘a real or perceived bias’ and that projects are ‘considered significant’.

“This is with a backdrop of property developers still being able to donate to political parties in Tasmania (unlike ACT, QLD and NSW), as well as Tasmania having one of the weakest anti-corruption watchdogs in Australia, and Tasmania being the most secretive Government in Australia, this is completely open to corruption almost by design.” said Sophie Underwood, State Director of the Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania (PMAT)

PMAT will be advocating against the second only slightly revised Bill and will continue our public meetings around Tasmania to encourage communities to stand up and engage to scrap the DAP Bill before they have their voice removed.

They are encouraging the community to come to public meetings and take action against the Bill with their next #ScrapTheDAP public meeting held in Glenorchy on Tuesday 4 March at 6.30 pm at the Moonah Arts Centre.

Followed by public community meetings in Blackmans Bay on the 20 March, Deloraine on the 27 March with more to be announced.