Liberal Policy Attacks Community

Will Hodgman ABC pic

Hobart City Council Alderman Philip Cocker today described the Liberal Party’s plan for 24 hour planning approval as an extraordinary attack on the rights of the community.

‘This radical policy would marginalize the community and prevent local people from having a say on developments in their own backyard’, Alderman Cocker said.

‘Under this proposal the people of West Hobart who fought to stop another bottle shop in a residential area would have had no say. Under this proposal the people of Sandy Bay who don’t want a phone tower next to their properties would have been powerless to stop it.

‘The would-be Premier of Tasmania Will Hodgman is proposing to prevent Local Government and the community from having input on developments with a drive-through model for planning approval. He is proposing a one sided model of approval where the community can go to hell and take what they are given.

‘For the City of Hobart, where infill development is a major source of development applications, this would be a recipe for community brawls and disharmony and for what real purpose, given most developments are currently being approved within the 42 day timeframe.

‘Mr Hodgman’s policy further goes on to recommend one planning scheme for the whole of Tasmania for all developments in Tasmania – residential, commercial and industrial. This would be the most unworkable document yet to be written by a State Government and would provide lawyers with years of income. To suggest that we should plan for areas like Battery Point in the same scheme as industrial areas would throw decades of planning development out the window and produce planning delays and farcical situations.

Alderman Cocker concluded, ‘It is time for proper scrutiny of Mr Hodgman as he pursues the Premier’s job, particularly when it includes radical policies to disenfranchise ordinary people and the community as a whole’.

Link to Liberal Policy Platform: http://www.willhodgman.com.au/policy-statements/