Media release – Felix Ellis, Minister for Housing, Planning, and Consumer Affairs, 7 February 2025

Ensuring a fair go in Tasmania’s planning system

Major reforms to the appeals process in planning decisions will be introduced to Parliament, ensuring the Tasmanian planning system is fairer, faster and simpler.

The Tasmanian Government will introduce legislation that only allows a person aggrieved by a planning decision to lodge an appeal to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT).

Minister for Housing, Planning, and Consumer Affairs, Felix Ellis said too many projects had been held up in Tasmania because of people who relentlessly oppose sensible, appropriate developments for the sake of stalling progress.

“This legislation will mean that appeals can only be lodged by someone who is directly and adversely impacted by the planning decision – not well-funded activist groups and anti-everything organisations set up to oppose Tasmania moving forward,” Minister Ellis said.

“At the moment, anyone who has lodged a representation in relation to a development application can appeal a planning decision – even if they live on the mainland or the other end of the state and have no connection to the proposal.

“This change will ensure that those directly affected by, or with a longstanding interest, can continue to appeal planning decisions, but will prevent baseless objections that tie projects up in delays and red tape.

“We want to make sure that if you meet the planning rules, you are given a fair go.”

Media release – Shane Broad MP, Shadow Minister for Housing, Shadow Minister for Planning, Shadow Minister for Building & Construction, 7 February 2025

Liberals attempt to distract from decade of planning failures

Today’s planning announcement from Minister Felix Ellis is little more than a thought-bubble attempt to distract from the Liberals’ 10 plus years of planning failures.

Since Jeremy Rockliff lost control of the parliament and started governing in minority, there has been a huge slow-down in construction, with major projects held up by red-tape and government incompetence and dwelling approvals stuck in the mud.

Minister Ellis’s thought bubble is a carbon copy of the Liberals’ policy from 11 years ago that they didn’t implement after receiving advice from the Department of Premier and Cabinet as late as September last year that the “scale of the problem created by third-party appeal at that time was not evident in the data.”

It’s been close to 10 years since the Liberals promised to make planning fairer, faster, cheaper and simpler with a singular statewide scheme. But as usual they’ve been all talk and no action, with the system becoming more complicated, inefficient and out of touch with the needs of Tasmanians.

The planning system is broken in Tasmania because the Liberals have been asleep at the wheel for too long. It needs real reform and solutions, not patch-jobs to cover up for a decade of neglect.

Media release – Helen Burnet MP, Greens Planning Spokesperson, 7 February 2025

Donor & Developer Influence Concerns Over Liberals’ Planning Announcement

There are serious questions for the Rockliff Government to answer about the influence of donors and developers in their decision to attack planning appeals.

More than a decade and four Planning Ministers ago, the Liberals took a planning policy to the 2014 election that was heavily influenced by the Property Council and their then-CEO – and soon-to-be the new government’s head of planning reform – Mary Massina. This policy included a promise to put limitations on who can appeal planning decisions.

While the government progressed efforts to undermine proper planning process, the policy to limit appeals fell by the wayside and was no longer government policy – until now. So why the sudden change?

Have there been more meetings behind closed doors? Have any political donations been made?

This decision looks like it’s been made simply to deliver an outcome to donors and developers.

RTI documents show that last year Ms Massina – in her capacity as CEO of a controversial developer – met with the Planning Minister to push for the old plan to limit planning appeals to be revived. Months later the government has, out of nowhere, done just that. That’s happened despite the Minister’s own briefing material showing just how unnecessary this change is.

There are serious questions about vested interests influencing this decision. The Liberals are well-known for doing the bidding of developers, and we now know at least one controversial developer has been pushing for this policy – Mary Ann’s Island Pty Ltd, the proponent behind the highly problematic Arm End project.

Fuelling our concerns further is the way this change has been announced. The developer pushing this change is a client of the Liberal-aligned lobbying company Font PR, and the announcement of this policy was made exclusively on Font’s own podcast – by the Premier no less. One of Font’s head honchos ran the Liberals’ recent election campaign, and another is married to Mary Massina, who put this policy back on the table.

All this is just way too cozy. It has the hallmarks and the stink of a quid pro quo.

Given how deeply dodgy this entire situation is, the Liberals need to come clean and reveal any political donations they’ve received from developers and individuals associated with them. If they won’t, there’s only one reasonable conclusion that can be drawn: they have something to hide.

Regardless of how we got here, the Greens strongly oppose this change to planning appeals, and we will be joining with communities to fight back. This is a huge and damaging overreach, and we will do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t get through Parliament.

Editor’s note: according to her LinkedIn profile, Mary Massina is no longer CEO of Mary Ann’s Island. In January 2025 she became Managing Director of EMRS, the company that does the most regular polling of state election voting intentions and preferred Premier.