An alternative perspective on the NSW Planning and Assessment Commission

According to the Mid-North Coast Greens, an analysis of 461 development applications considered by the supposedly independent NSW Planning and Assessment Commission (PAC) since the O’Farrell Government came to power in 2011 shows:

In 97.6 per cent of cases the PAC approves the development;
- In 98.87 per cent of cases the PAC ticks off on the recommendation of
the Planning Department bureaucrats; and
- In 98.64 per cent of cases the planning department bureaucrats
recommend approval of the development.

This would appear to be a remarkably high number of complying applications and, an unusual number of developers fervently embracing the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979 and other relevant planning instruments.

Perhaps Brad Hazzard as Minister for Planning and Infrastructure and, current Commission members Gabrielle Kibble AO (Chair), Donna Campbell, John Court, Lindsay Kelly, Garry Payne AM, Dr Neil Shepherd AM, Emeritus Professor Kevin Sproats, Janet Thomson, and Richard Thorp ( along with Dr Lloyd Townley, Emeritus Professor Jim Galvin, Dr Steve Perrens, and Dr Graeme Batley), might like to explain this almost unnatural behaviour on the part of developers of projects as diverse as coal mining and high-pressure natural gas pipelines through to shopping centres, residential subdivisions and marinas.

Their explanations would make for fascinating reading.