Page 1280 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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Predictability must be one of the cornerstones to planning, so that businesses can make decisions for the future in an environment free from uncertainty arising from unannounced changes to policy plans.
Predictability is something that the ACT planning authorities have lost. Hence, that position will have the ill effects on the investment confidence of businesses that I outlined earlier. The Supreme Court decision renders useless the substantial cost of the site to Concrete Constructions, and it is not counting the extra amount of $1m which industry sources estimate holding charges and legal fees would have added to the original purchase price.
Because of the cost that such developments do require in initial outlays, as the Canberra Times site example demonstrates, the decision of the court is going to make developers in the future hesitant as to whether they should undertake the project they have planned. I stress yet again that this is not what Canberra needs. Canberra needs the private sector to take the leading edge in its economy. The public sector is no longer providing the development and employment opportunity on which the ACT economy has relied.
The private sector must assume this role, and to do so it must have the correct environment in which to succeed and to take on new challenges. The Canberra Times site issue is the perfect example of what should not be done if private enterprise is to assume the leading role in the ACT economy. For this reason, I urge that the Chief Minister and the Government ensure that the current proposals for a major reform of the ACT's planning and development laws be published for open discussion at the earliest possible date. Then maybe the uncertainty that the decision has given ACT businesses can be overcome. The Government must ensure that nothing ever happens along these lines again. This city simply does not have room for three planning authorities, a position for which the Supreme Court also seems to have had to assume responsibility.
In conclusion, the matter demonstrates a problem in Canberra's planning system and must be addressed as a matter of urgency if the building and construction industry and the ACT economy as a whole are to prosper.
MR JENSEN (5.22): Mr Speaker, the problems being experienced by Concrete Constructions in this particular matter are not, in fact, a result of the leasehold system per se but a result of the way in which this system has been administered over the years, under the stewardship of successive Federal governments and Ministers who either do not understand the difference between freehold and leasehold or did not have the time to take this issue head-on.
In fact, I recall just recently a call from a distinguished scholar in this town, asking why this report
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