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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 826 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The fundamental importance of the issue is demonstrated most clearly in what appears at first glance to be one of the very minor issues that Mr Humphries has chosen to deal with and which brought about a series of interjections from members. I refer to the word "betterment". Stein said, "No, do not call it betterment; call it a development rights charge so that people know what you are talking about". Then Mr Humphries comes into this house and says, "No, we are going to call it a use rights charge". Well, it is not a use rights charge. The implication of that is that we are going to charge people, including you, Mr Speaker, to use your lease. Of course, we do not charge you for the right to use your lease; that is not what betterment is about. Betterment is about when somebody wishes to change the use of their lease, when they wish to develop their lease, which is why Stein sought to make it a development rights charge and to use that term so that people would understand what the levy is about. It is a charge for when somebody wants to develop their lease. It is that sort of issue that makes me feel very nervous about the signals that Mr Humphries is trying to send to the people of Canberra. They are trying to send signals that undermine the leasehold system.

Mr Speaker, I have had a chance to have only a quick glance at the Government's response. I must say that Mr Humphries was kind enough to provide me with a copy at lunchtime. I have been able to have a look at it for only about half an hour because I was committed right through lunchtime, particularly as the Assembly sat until much later than we had expected. I appreciated that chance. The appropriate way for us to have a much better look at this response to this very important issue is through the committee.

Let me emphasise, Mr Speaker, that this was a very expensive consultancy - unlike Mant/Collins, which I understand was worth about $20,000, give or take a bit. We are talking about the best part of half a million dollars.

Mr Wood: It was $630,000.

MR MOORE: More than half a million dollars was spent on getting this report. It cannot be dealt with lightly. It is appropriate that it go through the committee process and be considered very carefully, that the Government's response to it be considered very carefully, that we understand why it is that the Government wants to take a different approach from what was recommended by Justice Stein, and that, if necessary, the committee ask Justice Stein and his two colleagues - Mr Yeomans and Professor Troy - what they see as the impact of the Government's response. It may well be that all three of them say to us, "Look, what we wanted was a land management authority, and that is what we recommended; but the Government's response to it, of establishing a new Planning and Land Management Division with some statutory officers, meets what we had hoped to achieve. It does it in a different way, but we can see the sense in it". I must say that I do not think that will be the case. I think that just the opposite will be true; that they will explain to us why they came to the conclusions that they did and that what we see here is something else that will allow the leasehold system to be run down even further.

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