Page 490 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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In many homes in many suburbs in Canberra we have a situation where what we refer to as a section 10 allows people to run a business from their own home. It is a very important thing that people can apply for because it allows very small businesses, like those of accountants and so forth, to be run from their own homes, and it is a way of starting -
A member: And solicitors.
MR MOORE: And solicitors. It is a way of starting businesses up. Once those businesses get too big for a section 10, then they move into more appropriate areas. Most of us are aware where those section 10s have been misused and abused and that is something that the administration must take into account. But that is really the smallest of the issues.
One of the current issues, of course, is in Watson, section 75, block 3. That is a move to develop a garage on Northbourne Avenue. That garage on Northbourne Avenue is not necessary because there is already one on the opposite side of the road from the particular site, and Eagle Hawk has a garage not more than a couple of kilometres up the road. Leading up to this is a situation where, in recent times, we have seen the Downer Shell garage and the Hackett Shell garage close. The point of the matter is that when the Hackett Shell garage closes, no doubt the owners will be looking to develop it along similar lines to the Downer one where it has been changed to accommodate medium density residential. The profits of that sort of matter should come back to the people of Canberra.
The public interest is the thing that the courts have always looked at in the leasehold system, and in the case of the Shell garage the public interest is that it is appropriate to have a garage there for the use of the people. If that garage does not want to do that or the owners find it is unprofitable and they cannot do it, then they should return the lease and that will be the end of the matter. It is not a case where they should make a windfall profit from changing the purpose of the lease. The only two reasons for changing the purpose of a lease should be: one, if there was a mistake made in the drawing up of that lease - and I will give an example of that in just a minute - or, two, if it is in the public interest, not the profiter's interest, but in the public interest to change that lease.
The example I was going to give comes from section 52 in the city and it has been a matter of some concern here. Allow me once again to draw attention to the fact that I am not having a shot at either the Labor Government as it was a few months ago or the Liberal Alliance Government here. Page 14 of the development conditions of that lease said, in development plan 1984, regulation 617:
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