Page 1136 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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appropriate course to follow, then an appropriate time to introduce it is with the new planning legislation that we have now. In an interim piece of legislation that is going to last some two, three or four months it is absolutely pointless to open section 11A for its much broader use. It is something that should come out of well considered and well thought out planning legislation.
Certainly, the original intention of section 11A was for minor variations, and it was a contract that compares favourably with the notion of a contract between a tenant and the landlord. One of the ironic things about the ACT is that those who are most vocal about the Canberra leasehold system and are trying to change it to a freehold system are the very same people who are most vocal about the rights of landlords and improving the rights of landlords. They want to improve the rights of landlords where they themselves are the landlords; but, where the people of the ACT are the landlords, they want to diminish those rights. It is a clear case that those who want to diminish the leasehold system are, in fact, those who have a major self-interest.
I go back to the editorial in the Canberra Times of 4 March 1990. Another solution - here we have a positive suggestion, and the Chief Minister has constantly asked for positive suggestions - which would obviate much of the problem, with a lot less paperwork, would be to drop betterment but to impose higher land taxes in a way which would recover the increasing value of the land. The most efficient implementation of any of these, including the Government's proposal, would depend on a good look at a possible restructure of present land valuation systems. So, there are actually other ways to operate, and I think that that is something that we, as a legislature, should consider very carefully.
What we are dealing with here is vast sums of money. I think most of us are aware that a series of developments are proposed around Canberra next to the Griffin Centre. I understand that the garage there - I think it is a Mobil garage opposite the Civic Theatre - has been the subject of a surrender and regrant. That, of course, is a property over 20 years old, and as it is over 20 years old it would have a 50 per cent betterment.
Behind the Tax Office here we have the 10-pin bowl, and there, quite clearly, the leasehold system has been abused. That lease has clearly been held for speculative reasons as the 10-pin bowl has been closed for a number of years. The lessee has not kept the conditions of the lease. The lease should be resumed. In the meantime, if it is not resumed it will be used as a means of land speculation. The speculation on the land would be at 50 per cent betterment tax, because that is what we are talking about. If the profit from that land is in the order, as I suspect it will be, of some $7m or $8m, then half of that will come to the people of Canberra. Good; that is a positive move. But
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