Mr. Paul Hogan:

I will answer the question in reverse, if I may. The Bill will bring forward certain efficiencies in that there may be less process and more time for what I have described as real planning work. I am referring to doing area plans and ensuring that when a development has been completed, it is very clear what is permissible and, therefore, there is less scope for interpretation, ambiguity and all of that. The point is that there will be efficiencies and scope for better deployment of existing resources.

When it comes to the resourcing of the system I was very much part of that process with the local government sector.

It is certainly something that I was very keen to initiate. The Department did participate in the piece of work. We were very clear that we needed an honest assessment of where the system has got to, in terms of the tasks that planning must undertake, and also the tasks that we know are coming down the tracks. I refer to the likes of the residential zoned land tax, RZLT, land value sharing and what all that will mean.