Minister double counts jobs, discounts public dissatisfaction

“The table for the period 8 September 2008 – 31 January 2009 (sic -- presumably meant to be to 31 January 2010) states that a total of 36,589 construction jobs have been created, and 41,712 operational jobs, totalling 78,301 in all,” says Ms Hale.

“Of these 78,301 jobs, 13,013 construction jobs and 10,671 operational jobs resulted from approval of concept plans, that is, a total of 23,640 jobs.

“But concept plans in themselves do not result in any jobs for anyone other than those who draw the plans up. Before one brick can be laid or one operational job activated, concepts plans, which provide only a broad overview of a project, are translated into project applications, which, if approved, may then lead to the creation of construction and operational jobs.

“A concept plan may cover any number of staged developments, each of which requires a development application. To add the number of jobs resulting from approval of a concept plan to the number of jobs resulting from approval of a specific application would be a deliberate sleight of hand designed to inflate the figures, in this case by just under a third.

“I call upon the Minister to produce the detailed documentation to show he has not double counted. 

“Although the Minister refers to approvals by the Department of Planning, what he does not reveal is whether the figures have been further inflated by the inclusion of projects such as Sweetwater/Huntlee and Catherine Hill Bay whose approvals have been overturned by the Land and Environment Court.

“And, of course, the tightening credit market may also result in many projects never seeing the light of day even though they have been approved.

“The Minister, moreover, completely ignores widespread unhappiness about Part 3A decisions and the way Part 3A and concept plans have been used to trample over community concerns.

“Minister Kelly and the Government are desperate to put the best gloss possible on the State’s planning system, but until the malign influence of developer donations on planning decisions is removed, the public will rightly remain cynical about the government’s motivations and its statistics,” concluded Ms Hale.

 Further information: Colin Hesse on 9230 3030 or 0401 719 124