The Fightback
From the moment state governments started chipping away at heritage protections, there has been significant push back from the community, led by the National Trust.
As far as back as 2016, the National Trust surveyed hundreds of individuals and stakeholders, held numerous public meetings, and collected 183 written submissions.
The overwhelming response: the people want stronger heritage protections, not for the heritage system to be dismantled and sabotaged.
In 2019, the National Trust helped form the ‘Protect Our Heritage’ alliance, to mobilise the community against the new Planning Act and incoming Planning Code.
We helped bring together a huge turnout of community members (including academics, mayors, and local advocates) at Norwood Town Hall.
Following this, in April 2020,
was presented to the Legislative Council on behalf of the alliance.
The petition raised concerns about the content and implementation of the Planning, Development, and Infrastructure Act, and the Planning and Design Code. It requested independent reviews of their impacts.
It asked also for a ban on developers’ donations to political parties.
The parliamentary Legislative Review Committee’s Report on the Petition was released in November 2021. The Report examined the many flaws and impacts of the new planning ‘reforms’ and made 14 strong recommendations for regulatory and legislative change, which you can read more about here.
With a change of state government, we now have a critical window of opportunity to reverse the damaging reforms of the past.
We need your help to advocate for changes that will restore heritage protections, and the rights of individuals, local communities, and local government. Find out more about what we are fighting for and learn more about how you can get involved.