Page 1219 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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What is needed is for the Territory Government consciously to take on the role of an interventionist but prudent landlord whose prime concern is to use his ownership of the land to secure social, environmental and economic objectives for the benefit of present and future generations.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I must say, in a very positive mood, that there have been moves by the Alliance Government in that direction. I believe that those moves have not gone far enough, and that is a matter of a difference of opinion; but it is true to say, and we will get to it when we deal with concessional leases in particular, that the Alliance Government has moved in that direction and has moved to tighten up on the leasehold system.
You will recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that at the in-principle stage I supported the Bill because it does tighten up on those issues. However, I did raise a number of issues. One issue that is most significant, I think, is clause 4(a)(1). The difference between this suggestion and that of the original legislation is that the original legislation contained the words that I am proposing to put back into the legislation, and those words are "in relation to the purpose for which the land subject to the lease may be used".
It is quite common in Canberra for people who are dealing with the leasehold system to say that there is a Supreme Court application for a change of purpose. What we see here is that, by removing those words, there can be a Supreme Court action under section 11A for any change to the lease at all. The appropriate way to go about this change - according to Professor Neutze, according to a detailed report from a parliamentary committee that was chaired by John Langmore, according to almost any person who has expertise on the leasehold system and has looked into our leasehold system, and I have already quoted other sources - is to go for a surrender and regrant.
Instead of following those suggestions, what we have is the Alliance Government making a proposal to, in fact, broaden rather than narrow the purpose of section 11A. It has attempted to broaden it. Why, I have to ask, would this be done? Why would this have to be done at this stage? To make it a little more convenient? We ought not to be making it more convenient. A prudent use of our leasehold system would provide that we follow the advice of so many experts on it and that we say, "Yes, we will leave this section 11A for the time being. We will leave it being used as it is for another few months until we can tighten up our proper planning legislation". But in these few months we are now going to broaden the legislation to allow a lessee to "vary, amend, omit or add any provision, covenant or condition of a lease" rather than restricting it just to the change of the purpose of the lease.
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