COAG Pushes For National Harmonised Planning Laws

Key Points:
Australian States and Territories are in the midst of major planning law reforms, spurred on by COAG.

It seems there is always a need for more planning reform, a need which has been brought into greater focus by the current economic climate. We are seeing the beginnings of some harmonisation of State and Territory planning laws, but there is a very long way to go.

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in June 2009 produced some significant initiatives in planning reform:

• national performance measures for development assessment will be established, and all jurisdictions will be measured against them, with the first report for FY09 due in June 2010;