‘Insane’ community consultation rules holding back needed Sydney infrastructure, premier says
NSW Premier Chris Minns wants to scrap community consultation and environmental red tape on infrastructure projects such as new hospitals or improving railway stations, saying “unnecessary box-ticking” is delaying election promises and overdue construction work.
Announcing lift upgrades at two train stations in Sydney’s west on Monday, Minns argued it was “crazy” to require environmental reviews and community consultations before work could go ahead “when everyone knows we need it”.
“That’s true of most of our major public works projects. And in my view, there’s too much red tape,” he said.
“It’s really crazy that we’re in this situation where so many essential businesses are clogged up with unnecessary regulations just because the rulebook says you have to go through steps a and b to get to c.”
Although Minns’ comments were made unexpectedly, reporter this week launched its Stranded Sydney series, which examines how successive governments have allowed population growth on urban fringes for decades while failing to provide adequate infrastructure.
While the Prime Minister said he believed community consultation was necessary on a “controversial proposal” such as the government’s now-abandoned plans to redevelop Rosehill Racecourse for housing, where projects were “obviously” necessary “we could probably skip community consultation because we know the answer will be.”
“If you’re building a hospital, if you’re putting in lifts, does anyone seriously believe that that’s such a bad thing for the local environment that it needs to be stopped, or that anyone in the local community would oppose it?” he said.
Minns cited School Infrastructure, the government’s school construction arm, as an example of “huge success” because the agency is able to evaluate its own proposals in some cases.
Minns said that means “we can start construction faster…usually we break ground and cut the ribbon on a project…in a single calendar year.”
Last month, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption found former School Infrastructure chief executive Anthony Manning and two other former employees were involved in corruption after a lengthy investigation into allegations Manning gave friends and colleagues lucrative contracts without disclosing conflicts of interest.
However, the prime minister said that the changes he mentioned were made “as a result of the removal of that team and the introduction of a new team”.
“In any case, I think these schools started education on time and within budget, and unnecessary rules were removed to speed up construction,” he said.
While he did not address any projects affected by the delays, he said builders in NSW were frustrated at having to “jump through a lot of hurdles” on projects, including “election promises or delayed infrastructure”.
The comments come in the context of the government’s wider overhaul of planning laws as it seeks to accelerate housing supply in the state.
But it was quickly criticized by the Greens, with the party’s planning spokeswoman Sue Higginson saying the government had “already dealt a blow to the NSW Planning system with streamlined approvals and special application pathways for the state’s largest and wealthiest developers”.
“This latest sudden announcement by the Prime Minister goes beyond the ordinary, showing complete disdain for society and the environment,” he said.
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