Page 5642 - Week 17 - Thursday, 5 December 1991
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the legislation that everything we do is in the public interest. You can write into every clause, if you like, that it be in the public interest. It is almost an offence to say that we have to do this all the time.
MR MOORE (12.33): I understand Mr Wood's reaction as far as the public interest is concerned, but it has been a long-term understanding in terms of our leasehold system that certain decisions are taken in the public interest. The public interest can sometimes be in conflict with a particular development interest, or the particular interest of a leasehold.
Mr Wood: Well, there is conflict everywhere.
MR MOORE: Mr Wood interjects that there is conflict everywhere. That is the very point that Mr Jensen is making by this amendment. Where there is conflict, what has to be taken into account, what has to be given a high priority and what has to be made clear to people by this legislation is that the decision is taken with priority being given to the public interest. It puts an emphasis and a tone in the legislation that is appropriate.
Mr Wood said earlier that we could add public interest to every clause. That has not been done; nor is it necessary; nor is it appropriate. The leasehold system, though, is designed specifically to be in the public interest. It has not been used in the public interest on many occasions, as history would have it, and therefore it is appropriate for this Assembly to add those words, "the public interest".
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (12.34): Mr Deputy Speaker, the public interest has been very carefully explained in a great amount of detail in the clauses leading up to this.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 169 agreed to.
Clause 170
MR JENSEN (12.35): I move:
Page 81, line 4, at the end of the clause, add the words: "being a lease that does not permit a change in the purpose for which the land is used or an increase in the subdivision or development rights".
This is, I believe, a rather important amendment. It seems to us that there is a potential, if we are not very careful, to lose an opportunity for betterment, particularly in relation to the subdivision of residential land. I understand that the Government is aware of this
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