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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 817 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

of land reform and that this will not occur in the present Assembly without give and take on all sides. The debate about the best form of land management for Canberra will not draw to a conclusion unless all are prepared to give and take in the interests of the community as a whole.

I will therefore be outlining a package of reforms that does not include all the elements we, as a Liberal government, would like to have included. In doing this, we are, reluctantly, departing from our policy position; but I challenge other members to do this, where necessary, in the interests of the future of this city and the community as a whole. In putting the issue of land tenure into context, the Government noted the board of inquiry's view that "in many ways public leasehold is not different from freehold". In both cases the Government has the right to compulsorily acquire land; owners can transfer land; land can be leased or sublet; and the Government makes rules about permitted uses and development control, and levies taxes and rates. The main difference is that leases are time limited; freehold title is not. This is, however, a very important difference and, in our view, the greatest deficiency of the leasehold system.

While agreeing to retain leasehold, the Government remains committed to providing maximum security of tenure for lessees. This is an issue of particular concern to existing and potential commercial lessees. Noting the board of inquiry's confirmation that there is no legal limitation on the term of a lease, the Government will implement the following policies: We will make 99-year leases, which form the vast majority of the 140,000 leases in the Territory, renewable at any time, on payment of an administrative charge; and we will consider requests to convert commercial and rural leases issued for less than 99 years to 99 years so that they can be renewed at any time, on payment of an administrative charge and a fee that captures any resulting increase in land value. In some cases it will not be possible to grant the requests. For example, the Government could not agree to convert a rural lease to a 99-year term if the land were required for urban development in the short term.

The Government is very conscious that over many years, and particularly with the advent of the Territory Plan, our planning system has been moving from a lease-based system to one that is based in statute. We have given serious consideration to adopting a system that is totally based in statute, as in other jurisdictions, while retaining leasehold purely as a system of land tenure. If we are to retain leasehold, this is a change we would like to have made to that system. It will probably come to pass at some future time, as the current land system continues to evolve. For the moment, however, the Government believes that the ACT community as a whole is not ready to make that change.

There are, however, a number of achievable improvements to the leasehold system. To promote further certainty and simplicity of administration, the Government will progressively simplify and standardise lease purpose clauses. The first step in this process is already under way. Standard panel leases for residential purposes will be introduced by the end of this year. Work is also under way on other classes of leases for progressive introduction during 1996 and 1997. These will apply as leases are renewed. We will also streamline the way lease purpose clauses are enforced through statutory processes; but I will explain how we intend to do this in dealing now with organisational structures for planning and land management.

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