A decade of moral and ethical bankruptcy in both state and local government has culminated in one inescapable fact – that the planning approval process must be removed from the direct control of both State Government and local councils.
In NSW both have proved too easily corruptible when major development interests clash with community interest.
Local Government is now a business in its’ own right, with a steady stream of rates and one-off developer contributions a necessity to cover expanding salaries and staff positions; most of dubious need and origin.
The temptation to approve for all the wrong reasons is overwhelming, and community wishes and local amenity are not regarded as economic investments within the corporate mind-set.
The answer is something along the lines of the Regional Planning Authorities which now decide on developments over the $10 million mark, but without the government and council appointed panellists of the present system.
These new approval panels must be arms’ length from all forms of government, and the various developer front groups masquerading as NGOs.
Only when no one stands to profit from a favourable development approval, other than the proponents of a fully compliant development which has no adverse effect on the local amenity, will the current level of financial, ethical and environmental corruption be minimised in the approval process.
Local Government could then concentrate on the three Rs – Rates, Roads and Rubbish, the only factors which their collective IQs currently appear capable of mastering.
Tell your local candidate in the up-coming state election that it’s time for a change, because if we don’t demand it, nobody else will.
Jeremy Cornford
Kingscliff
