00:00 I think the Cook government today have come out with what we believe is a pragmatic response
00:07 to a piece of legislation that unfortunately was seen to be unworkable for most industries
00:15 and unfortunately had a significant impact in terms of delay and cost when we are trying
00:22 to deliver much needed housing supply.
00:25 What were some of your criticisms of the Act?
00:29 I think our feedback is fairly consistent with many of the other industry groups in
00:35 that it was overly complex and onerous and equally was ambiguous in a lot of ways but
00:42 which left the development industry with a lack of clarity around where the risk and
00:47 liability remained in terms of delivering housing supply and ground disturbance in particular
00:56 and really the previous Act in 1972 worked fundamentally well but did need those core
01:04 tweaks that the government has addressed today.
01:08 So I think what we have ended up with is a fairly balanced approach.
01:13 So you are the WA head of the Urban Development Institute of Australia.
01:18 How did the Act affect housing supply?
01:23 Well we had feedback from numerous members both in Greenfields Development and in Phil
01:29 that it had effectively halted the progress of their approvals process and also construction
01:39 works because they ultimately needed to comply with a new due diligence assessment process
01:45 that was a new part of the Act and put the onus on the landholder and every landholder
01:52 in fact over 1100 square metres in Western Australia to undertake a diligence assessment,
01:59 identify whether there is any heritage on the site but ultimately couldn't rely on the
02:05 directory that hosted all of that information and still had to go through quite an onerous
02:10 process to prove otherwise and that contributed to significant amount of delays.
02:17 Are you happy with what the government is now proposing?
02:22 I think what the government has announced today appears to be a pragmatic response to
02:28 all of the stakeholders concerns.
02:31 As always the devil is in the detail so once we get the chance to review the bill we will
02:37 be in a better position to comment but we certainly support the equal provision of rights
02:44 of appeal so that traditional owners now have that right alongside industry which wasn't
02:50 there under the 1972 Act.
02:53 Do you agree that Aboriginal heritage sites should be protected and how should we go about
02:58 achieving that?
03:00 Absolutely, the development industry has always supported and respected the rights of Aboriginal
03:08 people and the traditional owners to protect their cultural heritage interests and continue
03:13 to do so I think working through this collaboratively with traditional owners and making sure that
03:21 we get the balance right is going to be fundamental to making sure that all parties have their
03:28 needs met.
03:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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