{"id":616,"date":"2013-02-09T04:23:51","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T18:23:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-04-23T14:43:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T04:43:00","slug":"hugevcatfeerises-stategovtwantsuser-pays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/2013\/02\/09\/hugevcatfeerises-stategovtwantsuser-pays\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge VCAT fee rises – state govt wants user-pays!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought planning “reforms” couldn’t get much worse\u2026..<\/span><\/p>\n

After all the other undemocratic and deregulatory planning reforms of the last year or so – to add injury to insult, the Attorney General has decided that VCAT should operate on a user-pays basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was originally intended that from March this year, the cost of lodging a VCAT appeal would jump from $322 to $732, and to over $1000 by 2015. There are other large fee increases proposed as well, including mediation which is free at present.\u00a0 <\/span>A summary of the proposed fees for planning matters is attached below.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This would appear to be <\/span>totally against the original rationale that the tribunal should be a low-cost, accessible avenue of review for ordinary citizens. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, there have been a large number of submissions on the new fees proposal and only two weeks to assess them and incorporate any changes before the original introduction date of March 1.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, the Attorney-General has obviously had to re-think the situation.\u00a0 As of mid-March, there has still been no information about when the new charges might be introduced nor what changes might be made.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information, go to the Justice Dept website:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.justice.vic.gov.au\/home\/the+justice+system\/regulatory+impact+statements\/ris+for+proposed+vcat+fees+regs<\/p>\n

Email address:\u00a0\u00a0 legalpolicysubmissions@justice.vic.gov.au<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Submissions against this “justice for the rich” via the Dept of Justice website closed on 15 February.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here are some key submissions on the proposed VCAT fees:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

SOS Submision<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

EDO (Environment Defenders Office) submission<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

PIA (Planning Institute of Aust., Vic) submission<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought planning "reforms" couldn't get much worse…..<\/span><\/p>\n

After all the other undemocratic and deregulatory planning reforms of the last year or so – to add injury to insult, the Attorney General has decided that VCAT should operate on a user-pays basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was originally intended that from March this year, the cost of lodging a VCAT appeal would jump from $322 to $732, and to over $1000 by 2015. There are other large fee increases proposed as well, including mediation which is free at present.  <\/span>A summary of the proposed fees for planning matters is attached below.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This would appear to be <\/span>totally against the original rationale that the tribunal should be a low-cost, accessible avenue of review for ordinary citizens. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, there have been a large number of submissions on the new fees proposal and only two weeks to assess them and incorporate any changes before the original introduction date of March 1.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, the Attorney-General has obviously had to re-think the situation.  As of mid-March, there has still been no information about when the new charges might be introduced nor what changes might be made.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information, go to the Justice Dept website:<\/p>\n

\thttp:\/\/www.justice.vic.gov.au\/home\/the+justice+system\/regulatory+impact+statements\/ris+for+proposed+vcat+fees+regs<\/span><\/p>\n

Email address:   legalpolicysubmissions@justice.vic.gov.au<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Submissions against this "justice for the rich" via the Dept of Justice website closed on 15 February.    Here are some key submissions on the proposed VCAT fees:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

SOS Submision<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

EDO (Environment Defenders Office) submission<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

PIA (Planning Institute of Aust., Vic) submission<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalplanning-24","category-public"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sos.asn.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}