Elise Archer MP

More than 12 months to get planning approval for a development is not “open for business”.

It is unacceptable that the $900 million Paranville Development, that is expected to create up to 1000 jobs, has been held-up for the past 12 months simply because of the Green-Labor planning mess.

Only last week we saw the potential loss of a $100 million Buddhist Centre development in southern Tasmania because of an outdated planning system; and the Parliament Square project has faced innumerable delays.

The State simply can’t afford any more of these costly delays.

We have developers ready to invest money in Tasmania, yet our messy and expensive planning system is holding them back – eventually they will go elsewhere, if not already.

We need to be encouraging positive development such as Paranville, not continually throwing up as many hurdles as possible.

That is why the Liberals’ have already outlined how, in Government, we would implement a single state-wide planning scheme that would get rid of the current 36 planning schemes and also disallow frivolous third-party appeals, as part of our vision to make Tasmania a self-reliant state.

Tasmania needs positive developments like this to proceed so that we can hang up the ‘open for business’ sign – but under Labor and the Greens, projects will continue to be delayed and investors will continue to be frightened off by needlessly complicated and outdated planning laws.

Elise Archer MP
Shadow Minister for Planning
Thursday 2 February, 2012