The Australian Planning System

The planning system of Australia is a patchwork of semi-independent frameworks each designed to operate at different levels of jurisdiction. These systems are very much dominated along state lines and each state provides its own department designed to deal with the states local issues. Such and organisation is very much a holdover from the colonial period of Australia when each colony operated completely autonomously and as is reflected even today through the difficulties faced when trying to plan on a national scale.

The claim could easily be made that Australia’s only truly national planning organisation is the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), an industry body that is largely independent and self-regulating (PIA, 2012). Traditionally the federal government has regulated planning primarily through environmental legislation and a national heritage framework. Only recently has this began to change with the creation of a National Urban Policy released in 2011 (DIRD, 2011). In the absence of a strong national authority most planning has been pioneered at the local and state level in Australia. Each Australian State has a planning authority and cascading down from this are the local councils, shire and regional authorities often with overlapping jurisdictions. In addition to this are planning designations designed around projects or limited objectives such as the Broader Western Sydney Employment Area which provide further complications (NSWP&I, 2013).

The complicated and multi-level nature of Australian planning has often led to a lack of national direction in the past. Only in the past few years has this begun to change as the federal government attempts to take more control of planning issues. While this approach has provided the scope for unique solutions throughout the country to develop it has also hindered the development of a unified planning framework for the future. As this authority becomes more centralised we can expect to find a more structured, efficient system better able to cope with emerging challenges, but perhaps at the expense of innovation and adaptation in Australian planning.

References

Planning Institute of Australia, 2012, About Us, Accessed 10/3/2014, http://www.planning.org.au/aboutpia

Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, 2011, National Urban Policy, Accessed 10/3/2014, http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/pab/urbanpolicy/

New South Wales Department of Planning and Infrastructure, 2013, Broader Western Sydney Employment Area, Accessed 10/3/2014, http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/en-us/planningyourregion/broaderwesternsydneyemploymentarea-wsea.aspx