Page 1154 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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to check regulations for definitions. So it is important that either the dictionary definition apply to certain words appearing in legislation or we define them in the legislation.
I have the second edition of the Concise Macquarie Dictionary and there "betterment" is simply defined as the noun for the adjective "better". "Better" is defined as "of superior quality or excellence: a better position". So, it has no reasonable application. A court simply could not use that word. On the other hand, the word "premium" - the word which was originally in the Bill and which has been removed - is defined as "a prize to be won in a competition; a bonus, gift". In economic terms it is defined as "the excess value of one form of money over another of the same nominal value". This is much closer to what we mean in the way we use "betterment" in Canberra with reference to the leasehold system.
The vast majority of people in Australia do not use the term "betterment". In fact, in discussing that term with non-Canberran journalists recently, I found that they have no idea of what is meant by betterment. Therefore, it is important that we define it. The Concise Oxford Dictionary that I used last night, Mr Speaker, is slightly out of date. I believe that our language is part of a living language - that is the way courts would look at it - and I accept that this definition may be a little inappropriate. It says that "betterment" is the "enhanced value of real property arising from local improvements".
Those local improvements could be anything. A wide range of local improvements could affect a betterment. They may be, for example, having sewerage and electricity and so forth. Those local improvements could affect the betterment of a property. The value of having other office blocks built around you could be considered, under that definition of betterment, to be an improvement, and therefore to be taken into account as part of a levy; yet that is not what we mean by it at all. In the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the current edition that I got from the Assembly Library, we have a very broad definition of "betterment". It obviously sees it as an American term. It states that "betterment" is a specific "improvement of property" in the US as from 1809.
Improvement of property is what we are on about, but that is so broad as to be relatively meaningless. It would be far better to look at the definition of "premium", the original word, in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary which simply starts with the word "reward". That word "reward" applies much better. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definition also includes "booty, profit and reward". Perhaps booty is exactly what we are talking about. I think the word is extremely applicable. We are really given the choice of either sticking with the word "premium" for the next three months or defining the word "betterment".
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