Barbara Moore

Wild weather is lashing Australia’s east coast, with heavy downpours triggering a surge in calls for assistance. Multiple severe weather warnings remain in place, including alerts for damaging winds and hazardous surf across NSW. At least two tornadoes were reported across the state, including one captured on camera from a fire tower at Young as it tore through a field. The State Emergency Service has received more than 850 calls in the past 24 hours, mostly due to heavy rain.

Former senior planner RICHARD JOHNSTON says a ‘local planning panel’ offers an open and transparent option that could easily be adopted by the ACT government. In a previous article on governance, I noted that “trust and transparency” was one of three “key feedback themes” that were reported to be “consistently prominent” across four stakeholder meetings. Transparency in the development approval process is a very rare commodity, at least for the wider ACT community.