The state’s property industry has welcomed the commitment from the LNP Opposition to refine the Government’s Market-Led Proposals framework.
Property Council Queensland Executive Director, Chris Mountford, said the new policy looks to clear up some of the imperfections in the process that the Government has developed to assess unsolicited proposals from the private sector.
“The Palaszczuk Government broke new ground when establishing a dedicated framework to assess proposals from the private sector for new services or infrastructure that need government cooperation,” Mr Mountford said.
“The Government put the call out to the private sector for fresh ideas and have been inundated with innovative proposals and willing investors.”
“More than 18 months on, we have only seen one project emerge from the approval process.”
“The biggest hurdle in the current assessment process is the ‘uniqueness test’ – proponents have to prove that they are proposing a unique offer and they are uniquely placed to deliver it.”
“Ultimately, the main test should not be whether the project is unique, but whether it will benefit Queensland – by boosting the economy, or by creating jobs, or by building new assets for local communities.”
“The LNP’s proposal to temper the uniqueness test and set deadlines for assessment would help boost certainty for proponents, who are investing a lot of money upfront to prepare their proposals for the assessment process.”
“The property industry would like to see the Government look at how their process is going, and see if refinements can be made to ensure more economic opportunities can be re