Page 5918 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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they are doing us a service. I think the Government should be looking into a way in which we could be protecting not only their interests but also our interests, because while we would be protecting their interests we would be looking after our own.
I would like to thank all the other committee members who worked on this inquiry. It was an interesting one; we enjoyed this. It was not a really hard committee.
Mr Humphries: Not like bed numbers.
MRS GRASSBY: It was quite interesting, and it was very enjoyable. As Mr Humphries just said, "Not like bed numbers". I would not say that that was that hard either, Mr Humphries. It just depends on whom you are sitting on the committee with, and I will not name any names; it is not the place to do it.
But I thank them. I found myself on about seven committees, but this was one that I quite enjoyed being on. Even though I am a country girl, I learnt quite a bit from being on this committee about running small farms, as they do in Canberra. I come from an area where the farms were much larger and a lot more per acre is grown on them under irrigation. It was an interesting time. I thank those people, and I thank the committee. I will not take up any more of the time of the house because I know that Mr Humphries wishes to speak on this as well.
MR COLLAERY (3.36): Mr Deputy Speaker, the subject of rural leases in this Territory has to be looked at, as the committee clerk indicated in the introduction that was prepared for the committee, as part of the Monaro, part of the Limestone Plains. We are dealing with a custodianship issue, as Professor Hancock made very clear in his geographical survey of the Monaro some years ago, and as John Gale wrote, many years ago, in the history of the settlement of the Canberra region.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as a practising solicitor in this town who is aware of the practical condition of rural licensees, I am very pleased to be part of the committee which hopefully is going to prod the Government into providing tenure for those many licensees who are kept on in a variety of forms in the areas adjoining our urban developed parts of Canberra.
The problems can be rolled into one. You have, in many cases, good farmers on reasonable land - it is good land in some cases, but mostly it is reasonable at best - and they may well be keen to conduct a better economic activity on the land, but they do not have sufficient long-term tenure to use it as collateral to raise finance for pasture improvement or capital improvements. Additionally, they do not have the overall incentive to do that because in farming there is a strong attachment to the land and a strong sense of passing on your achievements within the family.
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