Page 3331 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 October 2022
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recommendation made by the Auditor-General. Why didn’t they agree? I hope that today we hear why.
I, too, am calling on the Labor-Greens government to include this information in ACT land and property reports. Given the current lateness and infrequency of the ACT land and property reports, I am calling on the Labor-Greens government to establish an inventory of serviced land and to publish up-to-date information online. Simply advertising blocks for sale does not provide the full picture of the pipeline. This is just one-way market information, and it could be made so much more transparent.
I am also calling on the government to publicly release its residential land supply model, methodology and the policy guidance and criteria used to make decisions about affordable housing targets and locations. The government should clarify their block classifications report against each of the classifications explicitly, clearly and consistently in the Indicative Land Release Program, ACT land and property reports and Suburban Land Agency annual reports.
Earlier in the week, the ACT Integrity Commission released a special report on the integrity of the land sales systems employed by the Suburban Land Agency. The report found that there was a significant risk of corruption involved in the process, and that the actions taken by the SLA to date are not likely to be enough to mitigate the risk. Again, I want to repeat those words from the ACT Integrity Commissioner. The report found that there was a significant risk of corruption involved in the process, and that the actions taken by the SLA to date are not likely to be enough to mitigate the risk.
The public accounts committee recommended that the government undertake analysis of the number and nature of registrants for land ballots and present this to the Assembly by the last sitting day of 2022. I look forward to seeing that analysis.
In summary, there are clearly many things that can be done to improve land supply and release in the territory, and to improve transparency and the community’s faith in the system. I look forward to the government’s response to the public accounts committee report and genuinely hope that significant action is taken by the Labor-Greens government to address the identified issues with land supply and release, because Canberrans are counting on it. I commend this motion to the Assembly.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (3.38): I will speak to this motion on behalf of Minister Gentleman, who is away from the chamber today, and I will add some comments of my own in response to Mr Parton’s motion.
The ACT government remains committed to supporting land for release in the territory, both now and into the future. Through our strategic planning work and the Indicative Land Release Program, we have programmed an ambitious five-year plan for land release in the territory. This plan seeks to make land available for a range of different uses and purposes to allow the territory to grow sustainably while also meeting the varying needs of the community.
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