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We have a policy that we took to the electorate at the last election. We want to put that in place, if the Assembly will permit us to. What they are seeking is certainty, and it is a debate we have to have for that reason. For that reason, I would urge members of the Assembly not to support this motion.

MR MOORE (11.33): Mr Speaker, Mr Humphries is correct when he says that this is a silly motion, because it is a silly motion that simply says, “There will be no change”. It implies, of course, that Labor had got it right over the last few years. If that had been the case right across everything Labor had done, we would hardly have seen a 20 per cent swing against them. On the other hand, Mr Speaker, I think that Mr Wood has moved his motion through a genuine concern about the leasehold system, recognising what the Liberals have put out in their policy.

It is for those reasons, recognising that genuine concern, Mr Speaker, that I have circulated an amendment to Mr Wood's motion, which I shall move in due time. Having heard Mr Humphries speak, I think he would find that the amendment and the motion together would be very acceptable to him. He has actually just made that commitment. He said, “Yes, if there are any changes, we will bring them to the Assembly. We will do it in an open way”. Having a motion carried by the Assembly that ensures that is entirely appropriate. So, Mr Speaker, I move:

At the end of the motion, add the words “without the proposed changes being considered by the Assembly”.

Mr Speaker, if that amendment were carried, the motion would read:

That there be no change to the administration of commercial leases in the ACT during the life of this Assembly without the proposed changes being considered by the Assembly.

Mr Speaker, through the six years or so of the existence of this Assembly there has always been debate over the leasehold system. I think that Mr Wood has very appropriately set out the advantages of the leasehold system. They were even more carefully set out in a report by his Federal colleague John Langmore when he was chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the ACT in 1988, when he brought down a report on the leasehold system. Whilst I have been critical of the Labor Government for not going far enough on this issue, Mr Speaker, I have to say that at least it progressed positively on the issue, and I think that after Labor's last three years in government the leasehold system is in better condition than it was when it took government. I think it is appropriate to put that on the record. I also believe - and I have said this many times in this chamber - that there is still a long way to go.

Mr Humphries argued that the Liberals had a mandate to bring about this change. They have a mandate to propose the change; but they do not have a mandate to push this through, and certainly not by administrative fiat, because they did not win a majority. Had they won a majority, they would certainly have that mandate; but they certainly have the mandate to attempt to proceed and to follow Liberal ideology, which is to change to a freehold system. Mr Humphries denied that and then said, “What we actually want is a leasehold system that works in the following ways”, and talked about basically

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