NSW Government announces broad expansion of exempt and complying development

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Published: Friday, 01 April 2016 00:05

NSW Premier Mike Baird today announced measures that expand exempt and complying development and remove local government entirely from the planning process - leaving only a minor administrative and compliance role.

“Barangaroo is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us,” the Premier said at a joint Urban Taskforce/Urban Development Institute breakfast overlooking the development site. “This is a site that has been neglected for centuries, satisfied maritime and mercantile needs for a growing city but is now ready for us to do something which is typically New South Wales and, more importantly, typically Sydney,” the Premier continued.

“For more than two decades both sides of politics in New South Wales have embraced a symbiotic relationship with the development industry. Governments have done what they can to get the regulators out of the way and leave it to the people who know best. Craig Knowles and Bob Carr were visionaries and we build on that vision today.

“All the great cities of the world have had visionaries given a clean sheet. Look at Paris, it would have been a crap city without the dramatic reconstruction initiated by another great political leader Emperor Napoleon the Third, and put in the hands of a bloke called Haussmann in the middle of the 19th century. It’s time to get rid of our equivalent of the peasant and low-life slums and let another Emperor reveal his vision.

“If there’s one thing I learned in my career in finance, it’s that rich people are rich for good reason. They know what they’re doing and while it sometimes looks like they are doing it for their own self-interest, they’ve earned that right and the benefits trickle down to all of us.

“I would like to acknowledge the Packer dynasty, our own nobility who, even today, properly treat the rest of us like serfs. If it wasn’t for the venerable Mr James Packer telling us that he would pull the pin on his magnificent gaming building if he didn’t get his own way, I would not have had the epiphany, the blinding light on the road to Damascus, as I have had and which I will deliver to the people of NSW.

“The government will establish a new planning authority for Greater Sydney, overriding all local government boundaries, and limited only by the Great Dividing Range and the Queensland and Victorian borders. This new authority will simply be called the AJW - an abbreviation I like for “Anything James Wants”. The private sector will staff it, develop policy and have unfettered access to our foreshores to create something to make us proud. I will appoint the inestimable Chris Johnson, former NSW Government Architect and luminary who can do the job and still remain CEO of the Urban Taskforce. That will make things much more efficient.

“I know that the proposals by Mr Packer have been regarded as alienating the public from public land, but that’s just a petty complaint from the jealous and less worthy. I have no problem with phallic construction, because after all, I have a phallus and I’m surrounded by other people who do as well. The Honourable and venerable Mr Packer should build the biggest he can get his hands on and make it a real monument to his vision, personal taste and his dynasty.

“I can see a giant Mariah Carey, straddling the North and South Heads, our equivalent of the Colossus of Rhodes, and what a striking entrance to our beautiful city and the paradise beyond. Emperor Packer tells me he wants to share a glimpse of heaven, as we all sail through the heads.

“Now it’s time for the tasteless, ignorant and poor people of Sydney to get out of the way.”

The Premier’s announcement was greeted with horror by Sydneysiders but welcomed by the UDIA and the Urban Task force. Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson said “it’s about bloody time we got the community out of planning and put local government back in its correct place, keeping out of the way of those of us who want to build a modern city. No more section 94 arguments for us developers, there won’t be a section 94.”

Happy birthday, Mike

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Published: Thursday, 31 March 2016 12:35

It really is Mike Baird’s birthday today. We hope he has a great day and doesn’t get too much teasing. Must have been hell with the bullies at the Kings School.

2016 depa elections delivers four new brooms

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Published: Thursday, 24 March 2016 12:49

Four vacancies to be filled and four exciting new candidates elected today. Nominations closed at midday and the NSW Electoral Commission has confirmed that we have the right number of candidates for the right number of positions. Nice.

There are ten positions on the Committee of Management. One President, two Vice Presidents, six Committee Members and the Secretary. The Secretary has a four-year term, so is not up for election this year, and the five current members of the Committee who renominated have been declared elected.

While a new broom sweeps clean, an old broom knows the dirty corners best. (Gee, it’s hard to go past a couple of great ancient sayings/proverbs/platitudes.) So six existing old brooms and four new brooms are a great combination.

President Andrew Spooner has been re-elected. Andrew has been a member of the Committee for close to 20 years and President for the last four. He is the Sustainable City and Environment Manager at Campbelltown City Council.

Jo Doheny and Jamie Loader have been re-elected as Vice Presidents. Both are also long-standing members of the Committee and Vice Presidents with a long history of commitment as delegates- Jo at Gosford and Jamie from the bush and at Parramatta. Jo is Senior Landuse Planner at Gosford and Jamie is Manager Building Certification at Wyong.

Joanne Dunkerley has been a member of the Committee for the past four years and is now an Urban Planner at Newcastle after leaving Great Lakes last year. Joanne is re-elected. Also re-elected is Vince Galletto. This will be Vince’s second term on the Committee of Management and he is the Team Leader - Building and Development Advisory Service at Ryde.

That’s the old brooms out of the way. The four new brooms, in alphabetical order, are:

Steven Cook

Steven is a Senior Planner at Wagga Wagga City Council and has been our delegate since 2008, when he was our only member. He recruited vigorously (we now have 16 members) and he was our delegate during The Troubles of 2010 and 2011 which, amongst other things, involved some bans, had the Council forced by the IRC into calling for an apology from that boofhead Peter Hurst and among a number of recommendations to resolve the problems, delivered a recommendation from IRC Deputy President Grayson that the Council had an obligation as part of its duty of care to protect the professional reputations of staff. Nice precedent.

Steven had surgery for cancer in 2013 and 2014, our August 2014 issue carried the story of then GM Phil Pinyon (suspended and resigned last year) and director Andrew Crackenthorp (currently suspended) refusing to provide additional sick leave. Steven has survived cancer and working for both Phil and Andrew, and will bring a real resilience to the Committee.

Renah Givney

Renah is a planner employed as a Senior Assessment Officer at Coffs Harbour City Council, where she has worked since 2007. Renah has been our delegate at Coffs Harbour City Council since 2014 and has been our delegate during the long-running, complicated and seemingly interminable dispute arising from their restructure (which earned Coffs our nomination in our 2015 HR awards) and courageously supported a member to file a grievance against a bullying misogynist. A real asset to the Committee.

Brendan Hayes

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Brendan has been a depa stalwart everywhere he has worked - in both metropolitan and country councils. He has been our delegate, representative on consultative committees and Chair of a Consultative Committee too. He is a foundation and active member of EDAP, the most successful surviving regional representative of the professions involved in development and environmental control. Brendan is the Director Environmental Services at Weddin Shire, which has its centre at Grenfell in the State’s south west. A jewel in the crown of the Western wedge of the state and a timely representative for a very, very big region.

Michael Middleton

Michael is the Health Team Leader at Penrith City Council and was an active and capable delegate for us at Holroyd before he moved to Penrith last year. He is acting as a co-delegate at Penrith and will bring a measured mind and enthusiasm to that job as well as the Committee. Michael will be our second representative for Greater Sydney - assuming that Penrith and Campbelltown are part of greater Sydney.

Congratulations to the four new members of the Committee. You can read the policy statements of the ten candidates here.

The new Committee takes office from 1 May and will first meet in our annual strategic planning conference on 9 and 10 May. It will be an exciting year for everyone.

PIA NSW did what?

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Published: Thursday, 24 March 2016 10:15

Wow, that’s a headline you don’t see very often. Largely imperceptible, PIA NSW has historically provided representation consistent with the majority of their board members - a majority from the private sector and a couple of local government people tossed in for appearances - as they have restrained themselves to professional education, training and running a conference.

The last time we mentioned PIA NSW was when we thought it was largely moribund and lamented its failure to properly represent the interests of planners and those involved in development control in local government with their support for broader exempt and complying development. You know, employment generation for the private sector.

But, just when you thought we had all got over LGPA misrepresenting itself as an organisation with some expertise in looking after employees at work, PIA NSW has crashed into the vacuum created by their tactical withdrawal with some broad assertions about their capacity and interest to represent planners in the workplace.

Historically, depa has had a relationship with PIA NSW’s Local Government Network which began more than a decade ago when we signed an agreement with people in the LG Network that we would support each other - specifically, PIA would encourage their members to join depa and depa would encourage its members to join PIA.

It goes without saying that this was an arrangement that advantaged PIA more than it provided a benefit to us.

Around that time PIA NSW commissioned Sue Holliday to do a report on the toxic workplace of planners in local government. Fair enough, but in the end, so what? I can remember a PIA NSW conference at Wollongong where Sue and I conducted a session (chaired by Graham Gardener) about the toxic workplace and Graham asked for a show of hands of who was a member of PIA and who was a member of depa. If our members outnumbered those of PIA NSW tenfold, it would be an understatement. Virtually everyone was a member of ours, a handful were a member of PIA NSW and some of them were members of both. A couple were members of PIA NSW and not ours. Not ours yet, anyway.

PIA NSW had no capacity at all to do anything about the workplace, toxic or otherwise, and if anyone was going to do anything about it at all, it would be us. And, as you be aware, that’s precisely what we’ve done over the last decade or so - more than 10 years of industrial action and bans on miscreants in the industry attacking our members of the toxic workplace, culminating in our section 106 against the grumpy old bastards (and potentially crooks, depending on what the ICAC does with the current investigation) at Mid-Western.

You can check out how we responded in our May 2006 issue.

But last week, the new PIA NSW President, Marjorie Ferguson (ex-Canada Bay and a member of ours at the time) wrote to the general managers at all councils in New South Wales under the heading “NSW Boundaries Review”, asking that they pass on her correspondence to planners who work for them. She made a number of observations about PIA’s role which we believe to be presumptuous and misrepresentations. For example:

• Support planners in terms of professional, career and personal circumstances as a consequence of workplace changes,
• Advocate and provide support for the crucial role that planners can and should take on the change management processes, and
• Provide information services to support planners’ understanding of the implications of new structures, positions etc. (The bold is our emphasis.)

We responded. Here is their letter and ours. You will see that our letter invited Marjorie to phone and talk to us with a request that she clarify to the same general managers that the workplace was our area and that there was no intention in her letter to suggest otherwise.

She did ring us to suggest that we were “old-fashioned”, “paranoid” and that it was a “free world” and that meant she could write whatever she liked and, when it was suggested that if she didn’t clarify things we would, because it was a “free world”, we could do that.

We reminded her on Tuesday this week that we did have a deadline to advise our members and she has chosen not to respond. So, it being a free world and all, we’re happy to call them clumsy in their communication, irrelevant to workplace employment issues and their letter has irritated more than it has drawn support.

Even a general manager has felt obliged to respond, telling them that he thought the employment stuff was depa and other industrial organisations and he’s been a general manager for 10 years and “where have you been all these years that I’ve been general manager at The Hills Shire Council?”

Well Marjorie, free world and all, what are you going to do about that?

Some great news for Catherine

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Published: Tuesday, 08 March 2016 13:59

Old bastards at Mid-Western

Catherine Van Laeren was highly regarded as a planner in local government until her unfair and political removal from Mid-Western. Mid-Western Regional Council, of course, remains the subject of an ongoing investigation by the ICAC.

We ran a section 106 for Catherine, confidentially settled it, and are delighted that since her departure from Mid-Western she has shot through the stratosphere.

Her professionalism as a planner, her capacity as a manager and director, and her vision for the future (qualities not appreciated by the majority group of councillors at Mid-Western) were initially recognised with employment at the Planning Assessment Commission and, more importantly, Catherine has now been appointed as the Director of Sydney Region West for the Department of Planning and Environment. Woohoo, go Catherine!

Those unpleasant old bastards at Mid-Western must be so, so humiliated.

LGNSW and the three unions meet about IPART recommendation 30 and protecting senior staff

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Published: Thursday, 25 February 2016 09:39

Local Government unions to the rescue

The beautiful romance between LGNSW and LGMA continues but if something useful is going to be done about the employment implications of IPART recommendation 30 and the importance of protecting senior staff in amalgamations, it will be done by the three local government unions negotiating with the employers’ organisation, LGNSW. More on the continuing romance, below.

Last month we reported on the romantic initiative and the development of a close relationship between the employers’ organisation LGNSW and the organisation that generally acts like one, the LGMA, or LGPA, whatever it’s called this year. The joint letter to the Minister for Local Government identified what they believed to be two major issues that should be acted upon in the interests of senior staff.

The LGM/PA saw two problems. First, if as a result of amalgamations a general manager was made redundant, then they wanted some certainty that a redundancy would be treated as a redundancy. This was a concern which nearly everyone else in the world thought went without saying. As did the second concern - if senior staff from one council transfer to another as part of Fit for the Future, then their entitlements should continue. Well, durr.

But the Minister happily acceded to the request from these strange bedfellows but has not acceded yet, to the more critical questions - like the one we asked about what happens to a GM if the council is prevented from renewing their contract during the proposal period - something which is clear from the “Guidelines” issued by the OLG. That, is a real problem that demands a response.

IPART in their “Review of reporting and compliance burdens on Local Government” draft report in January left employment largely alone, apart from recommendation 30. They recommended:

Extend the maximum periods of temporary employment from 12 months to 4 years within any continuous period of five years, similar to rule 10 of the Government Sector Employment Rules 2014.

Wow, everyone can be a temporary employee now.

This recommendation was made because “stakeholders indicated the requirements of this section created an onerous regulatory burden by being too prescriptive and reducing workforce flexibility.”

But the only “stakeholder” which has made any observation at all about the 12 and 24 month limitations on temporary appointment in section 351 is LGNSW. Everyone else was mystified about how this could be “onerous” because all it really means is that councils need to be able to count the number of months after they appointed someone temporarily. Not an impossible burden, surely.

But in the LGNSW submission to the Acts Review, LGNSW claimed that the restrictions from that provision had led to a number of industrial disputes and this, apparently by itself, was sufficient for IPART. This sounds far too easy: no examples, no evidentiary burden at all, just a couple of bald assertions without any detail. I wish we could get away with that.

But at least four or five of those industrial disputes have been with us and they have been industrial disputes filed because a Council has breached limitations within section 351. That’s right, the Council broke the law. Either no-one in those councils knew there was a limitation, or if they did, couldn’t be bothered complying with it. Like providing a further 12 months if there was a need, for example. 

More importantly, providing an opportunity to temporarily appoint people for up to 4 years will create significant damage in an industry which provided the stability and permanence that only comes from permanent, on-going employment. We have seen far too much damage in the casualisation of other industries to allow that to occur here.

In a contrary recommendation we put to the Acts Review that while 351(1) allows temporary appointments, and 351(2) limits those appointments to 12 months or 24 months if covering for parental leave, there should be a 351(3) which provides that if the Council is stupid enough to breach those restrictions in the Act, then the employee gets the job by default and is appointed to the position. A bit like squatters’ rights.

And we had much more compelling evidence that a few assertions about industrial disputes caused entirely by Council management running out of fingers or toes.

After the silly LGNSW/LGM/PA letter about the self-evident, the three unions wrote to LGNSW complaining that if issues relating to the employment conditions in local government are to be dealt with between the employers’ organisation as a party to the Award, then they need to be dealt with only with the registered unions and the parties to the industrial instruments in the industry. Apart from anything else, doing so is contrary to the objectives of the Industrial Relations Act.

LGNSW must be a bit embarrassed because the last time they had some passionate connection with the dilettantes at the LGM/PA with the OLG, they created the standard contract of employment with all of its inflexibility and unreasonableness. We now have an agreement (but not an apology, yet, for this thoughtless joint approach) that LGNSW will program a series of meetings with the unions about all of our concerns about employment protections in the current Act and things like recommendation 30.

LGNSW can’t excuse it by saying a group representing people in the industry came to them about the issue and it seemed reasonable because that lets them then do similarly with any group of people in any organisation that happens to have some people from local government as members or participants - what’s next, the Freemasons, the Knights of Templar, the Hell’s Angels?

We all accept that LGNSW has a role in giving advice to councils about performance management or sacking of the GM and advice to the GM on dealing with employment matters of those employees of the Council. But LGNSW does not have a role in representing general managers as employees - that would be far too great a conflict of interest.

On 18 February, the first meeting of the industrial parties considered a range of employment issues affecting all employees, including senior staff - recommendation 30, what to do about stopping unfair sackings of senior staff and whether there is any common view between us on the employment provisions of the Local Government Act generally. There should be, particularly in relation to preventing political sackings like the two directors at Mid-Western, last year.

(And there’s some great news for Catherine and some embarrassing news for Mid-Western below.)

Ex Planning Minister attacks extensions to exempt and complying development

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Published: Wednesday, 24 February 2016 14:10

Ex-Planning Minister Brad Hazzard

The Minister for Urban Affairs and Planning would be concerned to find that the development next door to him has been constructed which he wished he had known was going to be built, so that he could have some say in it. That is a key issue in respect of this legislation. It is about the community’s right to know what is happening in the local area.

There has to be more that satisfies local residents that they will have an ongoing say such that they can approve or not approve of a particular development on their very boundary.

The Minister should hang his head in shame. He should have been embarrassed to introduce this legislation into this House.

But the legislation will not guarantee that any development undertaken by the Minister’s next-door neighbour will suit him. In effect, the Minister has killed community consultation.

When a private certifier is ticking off the boxes for some development next door to the Minister, the Minister will acknowledge that he got it wrong.

Yes, the Hon Brad Hazzard said all these things. And they are all appropriate comments in response to the Government’s current consideration of expanding exempt and complying development to include a range of one and two storey medium density housing options.

The problem with politicians, our incapacity to trust them and our reluctance to believe them, is a crisis of our times. There is far too much evidence of this slippery and un-principled approach to policy. The quotes above were all things said by Brad Hazzard, faithfully recorded in Hansard on 17 October 1997. It was part of his vitriolic attack on then Planning Minister Craig Knowles in the second reading speech for the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Amendment) Bill 1997. A Bill which, amongst other things, introduced exempt and complying development and encouraged private certifiers. Good call, Brad.

But Planning Minister Hazzard took a different view and his White Paper released in 2013 aimed at security to developers and insecurity for neighbours and the community. See depaNews issues in August 2012 and June 2013 for more.

Now, the Government through the Department of Planning is seeking feedback on expanding complying development to various one and two story medium density housing options, including dual occupancy, Manor homes, townhouses and terraces. This despite the notoriety of problems associated with neighbours building another storey, overlooking, overshadowing and generally buggering up the amenity of your own backyard.

This will be another step in the campaign by Governments (of both persuasions) to remove the impartiality of Council inspection and compliance from the building and development process. Put it all in the hands of private certifiers and let them rip. Private certifiers paid for by the developer and the inherent conflict that exists in that flawed model.

This is not just an issue for your Council to respond to and oppose. It’s an issue deserving of a response from all of us. There is, after all, nothing wrong with looking after your own backyard.

Submissions close on 1 March.

2016 elections for the Committee of Management

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Published: Wednesday, 24 February 2016 12:34

We have elections every two years for the position of President, the two positions of Vice President and the six positions for members of the Committee of Management. The position of Secretary is up for election every four years.

We have one vacancy on the Committee now; long-standing Committee member Les Green reckons 14 years on the Committee is enough and is transitioning to retirement and won’t be re-contesting, and neither will Paul Reynolds. So, three positions need to be filled.

Ordinarily we struggle to find people sufficiently interested or committed for these positions. Obviously it’s something more appropriate to members who have already had a role as a delegate or member of the Consultative Committee representing our members and who see this is an extension of that commitment.

If you are interested in considering standing for election you will be required to provide a 200 word policy statement about what you can offer and if you would like to discuss what’s involved in these important roles, please ring the office and we can fill you in.

The NSW Electoral Commission will be conducting the elections and the timetable agreed with us will see letters to all financial members posted on 9 March. New officeholders will take office from 1 May.

Shoalhaven wins Worst HR in Local Government Award 2015

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Published: Tuesday, 19 January 2016 11:07

Extract from December depaNews

Shoalhaven's full nomination follows:

And the winner is...

A momentous day for Shoalhaven, for the second year in a row the team at Shoalhaven have taken out the 2015 Golden Turd.

This award goes to the HR people who drafted the commitments they don’t comply with, to the executive team and management who endorsed those policies and don’t comply with them, to the Mayor “yes, she is a lady”, Councillor Gash, who should know better and even to the “number of female staff” who, like MC Pigg “are over this sort of crap too”.

It’s not crap, it’s the modern world. It’s consistent with the commitments of the parties to the State Award and the Council’s obligations to “ensure and facilitate flexibility for work and family responsibilities”; it’s all about attracting, retaining; building good career paths; not losing good staff; establishing a reputation that will ensure the Council is an employer of choice; successfully benchmarked against other employers, and benchmarked to ensure best practice.

And if you don’t believe any of that crap, change it. Stop posturing with policies boasting things you don’t provide or someone might take you on for the lack of truth in your advertising…

Shame on Shoalhaven. Shame on you MC Pigg, and you Councillor Gash and the unidentified cohort of “female staff” who share your view that this is crap. Maybe in 2016 MC Pigg could do a little bit of feminist consciousness raising so that he feels more comfortable using the word woman than lady or female. No one says gentleman or male staff, do they.

Time to redraft those policies so you have something you can comply with - or get your act together, join the 21st century and look after your staff in 2016.

Councillor Joanna Gash and MC Pigg presenting on how to be an employer of choice

Anyone for golf?

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Published: Tuesday, 19 January 2016 09:39

The depa Union Picnic Day Golf Day, our great tradition, will be held again this year at Blackheath on Friday 11 March.

For members who have attended this day, there is no need to remind you what a good time can be had but for those of you who haven’t, the joy and the despair is both boundless and unevenly distributed. More joy than despair, more laughter and entertainment than misery and, regardless of the weather and anything else, much more fun than being at work – even for me, and you know how much fun I have.

You can start letting Margaret know you are interested now. We will close the day at 18 teams, so don’t be disappointed.

Last year it was won by four members from Bega Valley and the depa Cup was presented to them by the Council’s Mayor in a ceremony poorly recorded and inadequately photographed. This year, whoever wins is obliged to send us a picture of the presentation at their Council as soon as possible and we will put it in depaNews.