Page 399 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 1990
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is of paramount importance that we all recognise that the very fast train is a private sector project, and that the profits from the project will flow back to the private sector.
Mr Kaine has raised some concerns recently by his public statements that he would give priority to public funding of infrastructure costs in the ACT. I would be much happier to hear him give priority to funding of health or education or one of the other community services in the ACT. I know that Mr Kaine is now trying to back away from that commitment and to say what we all knew initially - that those costs must be negotiated. But by having let it slip early on, I think Mr Kaine has given away our negotiating position and that he has, in fact, offered $30m to the VFT project.
Mr Kaine: You are as bad as your deputy. You are misrepresenting the facts!
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Kaine! Please proceed Ms Follett.
MS FOLLETT: Thank you, Mr Speaker, it was good of you to intervene. I think that we all support the economic benefits that the very fast train could bring to the ACT, but I do not support the assertion that the ACT will have to pay for the infrastructure costs. As I have repeatedly said, it is a private sector project, and the private sector must be responsible for the costs. The consultancy report which Mr Kaine released states that the infrastructure costs should be met by the VFT consortium. It accepts that; I do not know why Mr Kaine does not.
I think that the people of Canberra should be assured that when the Labor Party is returned to government we will not hand out money to private projects like that. We have an open approach, an approach where the community is able to have a say on these matters. It is a matter of principle, I believe, that the infrastructure costs associated with the very fast train project should be paid for by those who will make the profit, the consortium.
There is another fundamental question about the funding of the very fast train, and that is the way in which the consortium acquires land. It is becoming increasingly apparent that much of the financial viability of the project will rely on the capture of increases in land value. In the ACT, of course, there is a special term for that increase in land value - it is known as betterment.
We have a long tradition in the ACT also that that betterment should be captured for the ACT community, especially where that applies to green field development. But we have yet to hear from Mr Kaine's Government what its policy on the transfer of land might be. I would like to put it on the record, Mr Speaker, that under a Labor Government those leases, could only be acquired by the consortium for their full value for their use for the very
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