Abstract: The last 15 years have seen a rapid growth in the popularity of e-planning in Australia and internationally. In this paper I wish e-planning to be understood as a range of planning activities that are taking place online. Eplanning can refer variously to the systems used to submit and track development applications online, online planning certification tools, blogs and discussion forums hosted by authorities and tools for envisioning future scenarios.

In Australia e-planning has been a subject of research by a number of authors (Khan and Piracha, 2009; Piracha, 2010 and Piracha et al. 2011). Australian local and State governments have been quick to realise the benefits of e-planning as Yigitcanlar, (2005) has shown. E-planning like many new technologies has been greeted by political optimism and is assumed to be constitutive of new possibilities (c.f. Bohman, 2004). These include greater speed and efficiency in the bureaucracy, opening up dialogue with a broader range of members of the community, and the possibility of ‘tapping into’ an emerging public sphere. However, while policy makers allude to the participatory and community benefits of e-planning, Khan and Piracha (2009) have argued that this is mere window dressing for e-planning’s real purpose: speeding up the efficiency of the development process as part of a broad suite of neoliberal reforms to the planning system (see also Piracha, 2010). Furthermore, e-planning is dominated by the use of one-way or ‘monologue communication’ with communities through websites, belying its supposed participatory benefits