On 23 February 1999 the Commission submitted its report on Oceanport to the Premier.
The Resource Planning and development Commission ("the Commission") submits this report to the Minister pursuant to Section 28A(1) of the State Policies and Projects Act 1993 ("the Act").
Section 28A provides that the Commission may recommend to the Minister at any time during the assessment of a project that the assessment process be halted by revocation of the order made under Section 18(2) of the Act. The Commission can only make this recommendation where it is satisfied that there is no real possibility that it will recommend that the project proceed.
At a duly convened meeting of the Commission on 18th January 1999, the Commission unanimously resolved that there is no reasonable prospect that its report to the Minister under Section 26 of the Act will contain a recommendation that the Oceanport Hobart Pty Ltd project of state significance should proceed and that it should submit a report to the Minister recommending that the order made under Section 18(2) in relation to that project be revoked.
The Commission hereby reports accordingly.
DiscussionSection 20(5) of the Act requires inter alia that the integrated assessment by the Commission of the project must seek to further the objectives set out in Schedule 1. It is the Commission's unanimous determination that the project as proposed, by virtue of the bulk, scale and mass of the building structures, would not be a sustainable development in terms of the provisions of Schedule 1 of the Act, whereby there is no reasonable prospect that the Commission could recommend in a report that the project should proceed.
In particular, the Commission is satisfied that the project, if it were to proceed, would not manage the use, development and protection of the natural and physical resources of the Sullivans Cove area in a way that provided for the social, economic and cultural well-being of the local or broader Tasmanian communities and that the project, as proposed, does not effectively avoid, remedy or mitigate adverse impacts on the Sullivans Cove environment or the operation of the Port of Hobart.
This determination of the Commission is based upon the key draft finding set out at page 7 of the draft of the Commission's Draft Integrated Assessment Report (a copy of which is attached hereto) and the material in the report which supports that finding. In particular, the Commission considers that the Oceanport proponent's project information is inadequate and incomplete, most notably in respect of:
The proponent's failure to date to provide adequate and satisfactory information to enable a complete integrated assessment to be undertaken leaves the Commission without any reasonable basis for presuming that such information will be provided to it in time for consideration for the purposes of completion of its integrated assessment, and the Commission is satisfied that, on the material provided to date, there is no reasonable prospect that a report prepared under Section 26(1) of the Act will contain a recommendation that the project should proceed.
Accordingly, pursuant to Section 28A(1) of the Act, the Commission recommends that the order made under Section 18(2) in relation to the Oceanport Hobart Pty Ltd proposal be revoked.
