Change the law so that councils cannot make planning decisions about land that they own. In these cases, we believe that the decision maker must be independent of the land-owning council. In our view, this could ensure complete impartiality of decision making, and avoidance of conflict of interest.

Currently, councils can approve planning on land they own with no independent review. We think this is a privilege not extended to others and has potential to deny justice to objectors to the planning proposal. We believe there are insufficient checks and balances in current practices to ensure that completely open, fair and impartial decision making occurs. Therefore, we think requiring a land owning council to face independent review of their planning proposals would create a fairer system.