Minister for Planning and Sustainable Development Chris Steel MLA introduced a bill to amend the Planning Act 2023 to automatically classify public housing and public health facilities as Territory Priority Projects, which would waive the ability for these projects to be subjected to third-party appeals.

The new laws aimed to bring the ACT in line with New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia where appeals are not permitted for public housing projects.

The ACT Greens introduced amendments to include community housing and exclude public health facilities from the bill, and to insert mandatory environmental and First Nations cultural heritage protections for developments categorised as Territory Priority Projects. 

Thomas spoke in support of the bill in its amended form, noting that the urgent need to increase the proportion of public and community housing in the Territory justified limiting third-party appeals, given such appeals had been used vexatiously in the past, but that the Government had not made a clear case for the same justification applying to health facilities. Thomas also called on the ACT Government to fulfil its election commitment to introduce public building certifiers to improve the quality and compliance of housing developments.  

The bill, as amended, was passed with the support of ACT Labor, the ACT Greens, independent MLA Fiona Carrick and Thomas. It was opposed by the Canberra Liberals.