The VCAT Fast Track: What Matthew Guy Said Before the Election

Oh no i missed the train :(

There’s not much point editorialising about the proposed introduction of a user-pays fast-track system at VCAT (as reported in The Age today). The case against is pretty much self-evident, and well enough laid out by various parties in that story; and even those who support it will see it as a necessary evil, rather than the ideal way to resource the justice system. But I thought it was worth going back to what Matthew Guy said to Planning News about VCAT when we interviewed him, before the election.

That interview ran long, and the section on VCAT was one of the main sections we trimmed in the interview as it appeared in the magazine (“What’s the Alternative?  Matthew Guy Speaks to Planning News.” Planning News 36, no. 10 (November 2010): 8-11, 29.) But here’s Guy’s unpublished comments about VCAT for that interview.

PN: How does that then relate to the issue of the VCAT major cases list? Do you support the idea of having a separate list for fast-tracking major development, or do you feel that there should be a better resourcing and overall streamlining of the system so that everybody’s on an equal footing going through?

MG: Well the problem with the major cases list is that like everything at VCAT the government is starving it of funds and it’s now stating to blow out in terms of its time delay. With no money going into VCAT there’s fewer people being hired and as a consequence the list is getting longer.

When the Labor party were in opposition, they opposed the equivalent of the major cases list under the Kennett government and vowed to scrap it. And of course, that is one of the issues that again I would criticise them over being hypocritical.

In relation to VCAT itself, my view is that with good state planning policy you shouldn’t have to have so many cases heading off to VCAT. If you have good state planning policy, and clear definition – possibly based off a code assessment principle which Vancouver has had in place for some time – then there shouldn’t be necessarily appeals left right and centre going to VCAT. And further, if Councils in many respects were taking responsibility for their actions and actually making a decision on projects rather than letting them time out and then head to VCAT, then again, we wouldn’t have a lot of the problems that we have in terms of VCAT being full of cases.

PN: VCAT’s list tends to be populated by the fact that people are unhappy with decisions, and have the right to appeal them. Clearer policy, per se, isn’t going to make that go away. Are you suggesting that you’d be winding back the extent of third party review rights?

MG: No, not at all. You’re quite right, a lot of the cases at VCAT are around people who are unhappy with a decision and I guess it comes down to a possible debate for the future and that is whether or not something is substantially non-compliant with an MSS, whether or not it then can go to the next step, then that’s something that should be examined. You are right though, the majority are people who are unhappy with the decision, and I guess you could never solve that problem until you properly resource VCAT to do the job.

This isn’t some sort of smoking gun; he ducks the direct question about the major cases list. But he certainly makes the basic, irrefutable point about VCAT: it needs to be resourced such that it can properly do its job. That money should obviously come from government rather than a pay-for-speed scheme. (Can you imagine the outcry if DPCD or Councils started charging extra money to substantially speed up applications?)

The other point implicit in his comments is that wider system improvement is the way the system should actually be improved. I don’t really agree that his suggested improvements – better state policy and code assess processes – are the panacea, but clearly systemic reform and resourcing are the appropriate way to reduce delays, not allowing those with money to jump a queue. Guy could see that when he was in opposition; it’s no less true now.

Photo by Victor Svensson and used under Creative Commons Licence; click for details.