ACT Planning Minister Mick Gentleman announced in June 2021 that a new ACT Planning Act is in the making. What input from the local community will there be in this process? Will there be genuine consultation? These are particularly important questions since research from the ANU suggests public trust in government has fallen to an all time low.
In this article, it is argued that public consultation, as practised by the ACT government, is flawed because it is an end-of-pipe exercise undertaken after all policy development has taken place behind closed doors.
This flawed character arises in part from a conception of governance which sees the delivery of public goods as best achieved through the ‘market’: Government provides its services through so structuring competition that market actors realise these public goods for government. Government thus becomes a de facto agent for the private sector. The role of the public service also changes: its job is now to work with private interests in order to secure Government policy goals. So, in any consultation around a new Planning Act, government and its bureaucracy will be de facto representatives of market actors, in this case, developers and the construction industry.
Alternative conceptions of governance and consultation exist. There are a variety of approaches, ranging from those which give real power to the community (collaboration) to cynical manipulation.
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