Page 4604 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
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There was also an instance earlier this year at the Kambah shops which highlighted the problem of the six-year special leases. Law abiding tenants, it turned out, were somewhat in breach of their lease purpose clause, but they had been there for six years and because the head lessee wanted to convert the lease they were going to be flicked out. At the time Mr Jensen said that nothing could be done to help them. I must give the Chief Minister credit, for he did step in and fix up that Kambah problem. As a result of that the Government devoted some attention, either bureaucratically or politically, to solving this problem with special leases.
Mr Deputy Speaker, earlier this afternoon the Chief Minister was fulminating against Ms Follett's reported comment this morning that this is a Government run by bureaucrats. That was a terrible thing to allege, said the Chief Minister. Well, let me give you a quote:
In suddenly changing a policy on a retrospective basis, the Government was operating on extremely insensitive advice from its bureaucracy ... Some parts of the bureaucracy and the Assembly have become extremely revenue hungry ...
Is that a comment of Ms Follett or a Labor spokesman, saying that this Government is bureaucratically driven? No, Mr Deputy Speaker. That comes from a letter from Bob Winnel, a prominent Liberal Party member in this town and president of the Master Builders Construction and Housing Association, in this morning's Canberra Times in relation to the Government's decision to change and retrospectively increase taxation on those special lease purpose clauses relevant both to this debate on failure to properly administer the lease purpose system and also to this question of the perceived lack of government by this Government and reliance on advice.
MR JENSEN (4.27): Before I go on to comment on some of the other aspects raised in general I want to put on the record a couple of points in relation to section 52. Mr Moore indicated that there was no lease issued for section 52, that the lease was not registered. I think that was the point he was making. The advice I have, Mr Moore, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that the original lease is registered and is subject to a caveat. The replacement lease which was issued, to excise from the lease the area where the casuarinas are currently located, to fix the problem that had been identified by the community concerns, in fact has been produced but cannot be registered because of the caveat on the original lease. That is the problem there, Mr Moore. It is a legal issue. But there is, in fact, a lease issued for that particular site and the caveat prevents the replacement lease from being registered at this time.
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