Page 3569 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 22 November 2022
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To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory
The following residents of the ACT draw to the attention of the Assembly that Property Developers wield incredible power over our community. They design, commission and eventually sell our built environment. They extract incredible and reliable profits from the Canberran community, including home buyers, businesses and government, while dictating terms to the local construction industry, surrounding residents and the broader ACT community.
Despite the power they wield, who can and can’t be a developer in the ACT is currently unregulated. Despite the frequent and high-profile corporate collapses, consumer protection failures and poor quality builds, there’s no rules about who can and can’t develop our valuable and limited urban space. The people who are making the decisions about how we live in our city are accountable to no-one but their financiers – and they don’t need to tell us who they are, either.
The community has had enough of the cowboy behaviour of irresponsible property developers. In a recent poll, 77% of Canberrans surveyed agreed that property developers have too much power, 76% said they were too reckless about adhering to community standards; and 77% wanted the government to introduce a new licensing scheme.
It’s not unreasonable - we ask anyone who drives a car to get a license to protect themselves, their passengers and the public. We ask anyone who sells a beer to get a license to protect their consumers and their next door neighbours. We ask anyone who owns more than 3 cats to get a license to protect the environment and the community.
Isn’t it about time we protected all of the above, and licensed property developers?
The undersigned petitioners, therefore, call upon the Assembly to call upon the ACT Government to move, within this term of parliament, to implement a broad property developer licensing scheme that requires property developers to:
a. Have the financial and operational capacity to complete any proposed developments and address any building defects arising;
b. Demonstrate a commitment to ongoing ethical behaviour;
c. Not engage in phoenix activity or other unfair commercial practices;
d. Not engage in misleading or deceptive conduct in the course of marketing a development to the public;
e. Accept liability for industrial practices, environmental impacts, building quality and the health and safety of workers on sites that they control or have influence over;
f. Publicly disclose the source of funding of any development; and
g. Nominate a natural person as a nominee.
Pursuant to standing order 99A, the petition, having more than 500 signatories, was referred to the Standing Committee on Economy and Gender and Economic Equality.
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