AIDA says focus on planning poses a problem for the Great Ocean Road

THE Aireys Inlet and District Association (AIDA) has again questioned the assumptions behind the future management model for the Great Ocean Road, saying there is a “stark lack of alignment” between what a newly-appointed advisory committee needs to do and what it can actually do.
AIDA welcomes the Great Ocean Road Action Plan and the state government’s vision to bring the road under one authority, but has previously flagged concerns that the action plan is silent about the sustainability of its objective to “grow the local, state and national visitation economies”, and what impact this focus on tourism will have on the road’s existing communities.
Last week, AIDA committee member Peter McPhee noted the state government had also established a Great Ocean Road Standing Advisory Committee (GORSAC) to provide independent expert advice.
“The members of GORSAC (according to the action plan) are to have expertise ranging from planning matters to environmental science, tourism planning, Indigenous and heritage issues, architecture and landscape design,” he said.
“The committee will have extensive powers to advise on any planning applications (for the Great Ocean Road), ranging from projects such as airports and golf courses to marinas and zoos.”
Mr McPhee said the seven appointed members of GORSAC were “highly experienced and credentialled planners” but were “all full or part-time planners within the same Department of Planning to which they are asked to give independent advice”.
“There is a stark lack of alignment between the range of expertise GORSAC is required to provide and the specific skills of its members. Where is the external expertise? Where is the community involvement?
“It seems that the only central expertise and experience to be called upon is planning – ignoring the complexities of the design of developments, the physical, cultural and social attributes of community resilience, the preservation of ecological systems and much more.”
He said GORSAC was required to take into account all relevant legislation and protections but claimed it would “consult individuals and groups only as it sees fit, its meetings need not be open to the public, and it may report to ministers formally or orally. The minister will decide whether to release its findings”.
Mr McPhee agreed that the existing situation of multiple planning and regulatory entities along the Great Ocean Road needed to be changed.
“But the new powers of the Authority and its advisers have narrowed the focus to privilege projects that profit from tourism at the expense of the coastline and its human and environmental communities the Authority was set up to protect.”