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Planning approval for $5 million Hill Top shooting complex shifts goal posts
Friday 05 March 2010
Greens MP and firearms spokesperson Lee Rhiannon has called the approval of the Hill Top Shooting Complex in the NSW Southern Highlands this week 'irresponsible', and accused Planning Minister Tony Kelly of shifting the consent goalposts by removing a series of concessions that Kristina Keneally had offered the community when she was Planning Minister to appease concerns about environmental impacts.
"The approval of the Southern Highlands Regional Shooting Complex is irresponsible, and the result of an unhealthy relationship between Labor and the Shooters Party," said Ms Rhiannon.
"The Centre should never have been approved in such a high fire danger area, nor should the site ever have been removed from the Bargo State Conservation Area.
"The approval process is marred because the goal posts for approval and consent conditions were shifted at the last hurdle.
"First the government gazetted amendments to the state environmental planning policy for major developments to allow the shooting complex to proceed.
"Now tougher consent conditions promised by former Planning Minister Kristina Keneally relating to acoustic shelters, ammunition storage, special events conditions and contamination run-off have been weakened.
"Kristina Keneally's fingerprints are all over the approval of this shooting complex, which has been granted in the face of widespread community opposition.
"The NSW government won the support of two crucial Shooters Party votes in the Upper House during the lengthy development approval process, while the people of the Southern Highlands get a shooting range most of them don't want.
"Minister Ian Macdonald announced in the NSW parliament that the shooting complex would be built in May 2007 before the Planning Minister had even approved the development.
"The Minister also secretly approved the rezoning amendment to the SEPP to get around the Land and Environment Court decision.
"The whole project is a sham and one the NSW government should be embarrassed to have approved," Ms Rhiannon said.
Contact: Lee Rhiannon 9230 3551, 0427 861 568
