Page 4190 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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There is one particular aspect of the Bill about which I am most concerned and which I want to deal with at some length now. Specifically, it is clause 171, which relates to leases other than residential or rural leases; in other words, it relates to commercial leases. I know that some members opposite will accuse me later of bringing an ideological argument into this thing; that Liberal and Labor are ideologically opposed on the matter of commercial leases, and that I am turning the thing into a political fight. I want to make it clear that I am not, and I will explain why.
Clause 171 introduces matters that concern me in terms of the future development of Canberra. If we look at clause 171, there are four elements of it that concern me. Subclause 171(a) has a 30-year provision. If you are within 30 years of the expiry of your lease you may do certain things. I do not know what is sacrosanct about 30 years and why anybody would feel more comfortable renegotiating a lease at 25 years than they would at 35 or 40 years. The things that determine whether somebody seeks to extend a lease have nothing to do with that sort of a time scale.
Business decisions that are made in connection with commercial leases at any time during the life of the lease may well cause the lessee to say, "This business decision that I am going to make that is going to involve a massive expenditure on my part warrants a longer lease than that which remains", and it does not matter whether it is 15 years, 25 years or 40 years. The investment has to be amortised over a few years of trading. I do not understand why we have opted for a 30-year provision. Perhaps the Minister can explain that later on in the debate.
The two elements of clause 171 that concern me much more are subclauses 171(d) and (e), because they introduce matter that is quite different from what is contained elsewhere in the Bill. Let me read subclause 171(d) so that we have it quite clear. It says:
Where ...
(d) the Executive does not propose to allow the land to be used for a purpose other than that for which it is presently leased;
What is the meaning of that and why is it introduced as a constraint against granting a further lease? The Government, the Executive, can do something about changing the lease at any time that it likes, so why are we writing in a prescriptive provision in clause 171 relating only to commercial leases this question about whether the Executive proposes or does not propose to allow the land to be used for a purpose other than that for which it is presently used? It seems to me to be totally extraneous material and
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