Planning Reform Misses the Mark – Planning Institute

The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) Tasmania is calling for more comprehensive planning reform, asserting that the current Liberal party’s proposal addresses less than 1% of applications and misplaces blame on local councils.

PIA Tasmania emphasises the urgent need for a more robust planning and land supply system to deliver affordable housing and sustainable development, urging the government to prioritise investment in the planning system rather than focusing on minor, ineffective changes.

Media Release – Planning Institute Australia

PIA Tasmania: Planning reform must go beyond 1% of applications

The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) Tasmania welcomes the Liberal’s recognition of the need to conduct education on planning in Tasmania, but this reform simply replicates the existing deemed approval process.

Today’s announcement addresses less than 1% of applications. This is simply the wrong focus.

This type of micro-detail reform blames Council planners and Local Government for an ongoing failure to invest in the Tasmanian planning system.

We need development of the planning and land supply system to ensure people get roofs they can afford over their heads. That needs more infrastructure, more land and more houses,” says Mick Purves MPIA, PIA TAS President.

“Today’s announcement will impact less than 1% of applications, in a planning system that’s already recognised as one of the fastest permit systems in the country.”

There is no way that our state planning office can do the work that we need as Tasmanians with half the operational budget they need.

The Tasmanian Planning Policies have not been delivered, the regional land use strategy reviews are not complete, and we are three years into the five year review of the Tasmanian Planning Scheme. Further, we still don’t have a system that can give us a current indication of land availability despite its recognition in all current regional land use strategies.

“We need a planning system that delivers an affordable, sustainable future for current and future Tasmanians,” says Mr Purves

Please get on with building the planning system. PIA and Tasmania’s planners are waiting to work with whoever forms the next Tasmanian Government.

Media Release – Local Government Association Tasmania, 25 June 2025

The Liberals have the wrong planning priorities

Once again, the Liberal Party has focused on the wrong planning priorities to support housing.

Like the recently failed attempts to introduce Development Assessment Panels, the announcement today is a reform that will have no impact on housing delivery and does nothing to finish the job for Tasmania.

LGAT President and Break O’Day Council mayor Mick Tucker said that today’s announcement relies on isolated anecdotes at best.

“The fact is our existing development assessment process is the fastest in the country, and issues with requests for information and councils exceeding their statutory timeframes are extremely rare,” Mayor Tucker said.

For example, over the past three years, only 11 per cent of all discretionary applications have had a ‘stop clock’ on the statutory timeframe, which includes referrals to state agencies and where applicants were requested to provide further information. In these instances, an average of just 16 days was added to the assessment period, including applicant response time.

This reform amounts to another terrible waste of planning resources working on the wrong priorities.

Our sector is calling on the next State Government to focus on the critical outdated or missing parts of our planning system, not tinker around with reforms like those announced today.

The challenges being experienced within our planning system are the result of a planning framework that the government has failed to maintain. For example:

• Our planning legislation, the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993, is now over three decades old and was literally made for a different century.
• The Tasmanian Planning Policies (TPPs), which should express the State Government’s policy approach and expectations of development, still don’t exist after over seven years of work.
• The three Regional Land Use Strategies (RLUSs), which are critical to guiding local development and increasing certainty for proponents, are now over 15 years old.
• We lack an infrastructure contributions framework to remove the first mover disadvantage and share the costs of new infrastructure across the developers that will benefit from it.

Local government stands ready to work with the future government on planning reforms that will support our growing local communities.