Page 498 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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The price is credibility.
MR JENSEN (3.54): I thank Mr Moore for raising this issue today in the Assembly. As my colleague Mr Kaine has said, it is rather ironic that the process that we all sought from the previous Government should start at this time.
A number of reports have been produced on the rights and wrongs of the leasehold system as they operate here in Canberra. In 1988, the member for Fraser, John Langmore, chaired a joint subcommittee of the Federal Parliament to examine concerns that had been expressed in 1987 by the Joint Committee on the Australian Capital Territory. Those concerns were that the leasehold system was:
... causing problems in the redevelopment period of the city's growth.
To assist the committee in its work, Professor Max Neutze from the Urban Research Unit of ANU was commissioned to prepare a report for it. This report, to which Mr Moore has already referred, and the subsequent Langmore report have formed an important focus for the discussion and debate on this issue.
I think it is appropriate that at this time I look briefly at some of the issues that were raised by this report, particularly in relation to the leasehold system and some misunderstandings of that system. The report indicated that the reasons for the leasehold system are that it ensures orderly development, provides a means of planning the city to be developed in a predictable fashion, and it prevents speculation.
The report also identifies the fact that the concept of leasehold, although accepted widely, is rarely understood. Some developers and other purchasers in this town have been complaining about the fact that there is a leasehold system. But I would suggest that, with the prices that they have been paying, they either do not understand the difference or they are happy to pay those prices because they believe that the leasehold system that operates in Canberra is just as good as the freehold system elsewhere. Otherwise, Mr Speaker, why would they be prepared to pay those prices? Quite frankly, I suggest that they do not have a complaint.
There is a difference between leasehold and freehold, which is outlined in the committee's report. Freehold empowers the land owners to control the use and development of the land, its sale, transfer and subdivision. Under a leasehold system this empowers the landlord - that is us, the people of the ACT; we are the owners of the land - to control the use, development and subdivision of that land. The lessee has the right and entitlement to its use and enjoyment under the terms and conditions.
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