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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1644 ..

Mr Wood: We will wait and see.

MR KAINE: We will wait and see; but we are told, and we are assured, that the Commonwealth does have an obligation. That satisfies my concern. The Commonwealth has acknowledged that it has an obligation. Now we can negotiate to determine the amount, the quantum, of the Commonwealth's responsibility.

I submit that the second of our reservations is equally as easily clarified. It must be quite simple for us to say to the Commonwealth, "We accept this transaction; but one of the conditions will be that the Government Printer moves within five years or 10 years", or whatever period is deemed a reasonable time. Simply put a time limit on it. Otherwise, the Government Printer has no motivation, no incentive, to do anything except sit there.

In relation to the final one, about ACTEW costs, it is entirely in the hands of this Government to do a proper review of what those facilities are and to come up with a reasonable assessment of what it is going to cost. Once they know that, they can build that into the formula. They can then say that, whatever the arrangements are for redevelopment, the developers, whoever they are, are going to have to cover that cost as part of the transaction. It need not cost the ACT taxpayers a cent, but I think the Government needs to know what it is going to cost and make provision for it in the agreement up front.

If the Government can negotiate those three things and come back and tell us what the answers are, I believe that the transaction should go ahead. It should go ahead as long as it is clear what Acton is going to be used for, as long as it is clear that we have free, unfettered title to redevelop Kingston, and as long as the high cost factors, if there are any, are provided for by assistance either from the Commonwealth or by the developer, whoever that may be, having to carry the burden. Then at least the developer will know what the costs are going to include.

Having said that, I must say that I believe that the benefits to the ACT community of having these two matters resolved and of the ACT Government having the ability to get on with redeveloping the Kingston area are inestimable. There is no doubt in my mind that the redevelopment of Kingston will bring employment, will restore a large neglected area to useful purposes and will generate, in the future, quite considerable revenues for the ACT Government. It should go ahead, and it should go ahead quickly. I do not believe that any one of the matters that the committee has raised is such that it is incapable of resolution or is incapable of early resolution.

I have only one other comment. I have reread the report thoroughly, from paragraph 1 right through to the end, paragraph 7.54, and nowhere in there has the committee included a section called "conclusions". I therefore take exception to the chairman putting in a foreword which says:

In relation to the committee's terms of reference ... the committee's conclusions may be summarised as follows ...

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