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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 827 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, this was a balanced response to the concerns about the leasehold system. There certainly have been some criticisms of the Stein report and I am open-minded enough to listen to them. I have been critical of it in some ways myself, but it was designed as a response that ought to have been a compromise where nobody is satisfied because there are no winners and everybody comes out feeling that at least some things are recognised.

Mr Speaker, up to now I have been quite negative in my approach, but I must say that a series of things in the Government's response are quite positive. In fact, if you look at the majority of the recommendations that the Minister deals with, they say, "Agreed, agreed, agreed, agreed, agreed". I talked of very fundamental issues that I thought needed criticism. One of the agreed issues that will be of great interest for people involved in development, for example, is what I refer to as the 30-day rule. If the development is not approved in 30 days because the department has not acted, it is automatically refused and therefore the person has the right to appeal and will get their application through that way. I think that is a fair description of how the system will operate.

There are a series of very positive moves in here that the Government has accepted, and I do not miss those; but a number of fundamental issues need to be dealt with. They need to be considered carefully by the appropriate committee of the Assembly, and that needs to be done before there is any pre-emptive action taken by this Minister or the department. Hence the foreshadowing of that motion which, after this debate is finished, I will be seeking leave to move.

MS McRAE (4.13): Mr Speaker, I was quite sanguine in my response to this and I have already spoken to the press. For the record, I received the report at about 2 o'clock. I was very pleased to see how much the Government had concurred with the will of Stein and how many of the recommendations it had taken on board, albeit through gritted teeth, knowing how much this Government would prefer to see freehold. My initial reaction on seeing the acceptance of leasehold was very positive. I accept Mr Moore's concerns about the user rights charge and I will be very interested to participate in that debate; but the fact that 100 per cent betterment has been retained, I think, is sending out a clear message that this Government is listening quite seriously to a lot of things that a lot of people say. The Government might not want, in their heart of hearts, to agree with them, but they have conceded to the will of the community.

The thing that I am interested in and a little concerned about is that Justice Stein did identify four objectives for the leasehold system. In the response that Mr Humphries provided the comment was made that the board has modified the original objectives of the leasehold system as Justice Stein interpreted them originally and has reworded them. Now the Government is taking it upon itself to try to come up with the right sort of wording.

This highlights to me the heart of where planning becomes, at its centre, the worst problem for any government - never mind this one - and that is the crossroads of the political will with what is ostensibly this pure asset that we have. It is like trying to combine the will of the people with a goldmine. We are sitting on our goldmine,

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