Page 1512 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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The public interest has to be taken into account in how better cities money has been used in this project. We heard Bill Wood last week claiming, first, that there is no better cities money used in the project, and then later coming back to the Assembly and saying that he had inadvertently - I emphasise inadvertently - misled the Assembly, that he wanted to correct that situation before the matter was raised by any other member and that better cities money, of course, was being used within the area of the Housing Trust.
Mr Wood: I did not say that at all. Put it on the record.
MR MOORE: Mr Wood interjects that he did not say that at all, but he certainly corrected the position about spending better cities money in the project. Mr Deputy Speaker, that certainly is not good enough. When Commonwealth money is being used in a project like this it must be made clear to the people of Canberra, and in fact to the people of Australia, how that money is being used, and, supposedly, what the benefits are.
The issue being raised, of course, is the issue of windfall gains. It is those windfall gains that attract developers. They encourage developments that are in the developer's interest rather than in the community interest. The developer's interests ought to be served not by the profit from the increase in the value of the land but by the profit to be made from the project. It seems to me that the way to resolve this is with a 100 per cent betterment tax, but that too should be the subject of an inquiry in dealing with what is in the community interest.
Mr Deputy Speaker, we could not consider this without considering the methods of the department. Why is that? Is it because of the mates that there was an initial use of section 7(3)(c)(ii) of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991, which provided for consideration of the change of lease purpose to be done concurrently with the design and siting proposals without ever having the design and siting proposals put before the Assembly? I think that this Assembly, as a whole, ought to see a reconsideration of that provision. That provision is referred to in, I believe, a minute to the Minister which suggests:
... a different mechanism will apply whereby lease variations and design and siting applications will be subject to notification of third party appeal and an additional requirement is being imposed to ensure that applications are combined.
It seems that there is an attempt being made to address these problems. The difficulty is that in addressing these problems there will be an ad hoc approach. It seems to me, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee of this Assembly has worked incredibly hard to try to ensure that many of these problems are resolved in the work it is doing on the draft Territory Plan, which is to be the Territory Plan. Talking about the Territory Plan, Mr Deputy Speaker, I understand that the report will be tabled later this week. I do not wish to see that area revisited, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is appropriate that the correct process has been followed. Whilst it may be in the interests of the community to look at the Territory Plan perhaps in 18 months or two years, it is appropriate at this stage that any inquiry work within, and be restricted by, the process that has been gone through by this Assembly.
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