7th May, 2026.
Mrs JUDY HANNAN ( Wollondilly )
My question is directed to the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces. In March 2025 the Minister announced a statement of expectation into local government planning assessment and placed an independent planning consultant at Wingecarribee Shire Council. Will the Minister provide an update on the planning Minister's expert report into the council planning functions, announced in March 2025? What were the findings and recommendations of the expert review? What does this mean for our community?
Mr PAUL SCULLY ( Wollongong—Minister for Planning and Public Spaces)
I thank the member for Wollondilly for her question. The member is someone who understands. I can appreciate the concerns of many in her community who at times experience significant levels of frustration with their local council. I understand why they have those concerns. When you boil this down, lengthy development application [DA] assessment times mean new homes are built more slowly, the job‑creating investments disappear, or environmental improvements are delayed or perhaps not pursued at all. That is an overall poor outcome for any community. Those are the real-world outcomes when the planning system takes too long to make decisions, whoever the planning authority might be.
So far this financial year, Wingecarribee council has taken an average of 181 days to assess and determine local development applications. I acknowledge that is down from 321 days, or almost a year, which the council recorded at its worst. But it is still more than 70 days, which is where it should be as a bare minimum. It is still not good enough. It is important to recognise that it is not only Wingecarribee shire that is not delivering on its commitments to its community. Among the top 10 worst-performing councils in the State are Georges River, Bega Valley and Liverpool, while other councils like Dubbo, Port Stephens and Lismore are recording average DA processing times of as little as 40 to 50 days. Too many councils are still taking too long to assess and determine local DAs. Those are often applications for things like fences, pools and granny flats, or renovations and modifications to existing homes. New South Wales has been sweating the small stuff for too long.
Approximately 90 per cent of DAs that go into the system in New South Wales are for projects of $1 million or less. That is why the Government passed landmark legislation at the end of last year to reform the planning system in New South Wales. It is why we have introduced commonsense reforms to planning systems to make sure that, in an assessment, people are considering the essential information on what is proposed and the merits of those issues. It is why the Government wants greater emphasis on up‑front strategic planning so that, when people get to the stage of submitting a DA, the process is simpler.
As the member acknowledged, this is not the first time this Government has told councils at a State level to pick up their game. When we came to Government, those opposite had let council performance collapse, with average DA assessment times blowing out to 116 days. There was no transparency on performance. As the member indicated, that is why I introduced a statement of expectations that set out performance expectations to improve average assessment times. Alongside that, we have been publishing a league table of performance so that the public could see the performance of their local councils. [Extension of time]
Ratepayers deserve an insight into performance so they can hold the leadership of their local communities to account. That is how it should be. That is the quid pro quo in our democracy. Lo and behold, some of those actions have produced results. DA assessment times are down by approximately a third, but not all councils were improving their performance. To address that, I brought in expert planners in councils where performance really needed to improve. Those councils were Wingecarribee, as the member for Wollondilly pointed out, as well as Georges River, Sutherland and Willoughby. Experts were installed to oversee and assess the processes and determine where improvements can happen. The experts have now finalised their reports and recommendations. I have now issued action plans to those councils. The action plans are required to be adopted on the floor of councils by the end of June, and their implementation will be closely monitored.
The Government expects councillors to show the leadership that their communities expect, which is what they were elected to do, and adopt the action plans. If they do not, the Government will take further action, which could include the removal of planning powers from individual councils. Elected councillors and senior council staff need to show leadership and set the standard. The Government expects them to do that work. They need to embed a culture of can‑do because, without that, their communities can do nothing. From 1 July this year, the statement of expectations will reset and our standard for council performance so that there is no more than an average of 95 days assessment time, with further expectations for improvement.
I hope to see Wingecarribee Shire Council and those other councils I mentioned earlier—in fact, every council in New South Wales—not only seek to meet the expectation in that statement of expectations document but to exceed it. They should outperform their hearts out. If local councils are outperforming, the students in the gallery have a fair shot at getting a house and a job in the community they want to live in.