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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2318 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I believe that there are real questions as to why that should happen. There may be very good reasons as to why we should move things quickly if we possibly can, but certainly my committee would be aware that only very recently we handled a variation to the Territory Plan near there, which had gone through the Executive and which I understand had taken a couple of years to prepare.

I think, first of all, this proposed change of lease is probably inconsistent with the Territory Plan. Secondly, I think the full revenue from this change of lease is not likely to be given to the Territory and probably the loss - especially in terms of demand for parking and so forth - is probably of the order of $1m. Thirdly, I think there are some questions to be answered, and there may be valid answers for these ones, about the process that was used. I use that as an example to raise the sorts of concerns that I believe would be dealt with when the raison d'etre for a land management authority is to ensure that maximum revenue is collected for the benefit of the Territory. We see example after example where the issue of maximum revenue from our leasehold system, our only real long-term asset within the Territory, is not dealt with appropriately; it is dwindled away. On that issue, the area that members did agree on, however, was the Commissioner for Land and Planning that the Minister will appoint. We recognise that we are unlikely to get a separate land management authority and a separate planning authority.

We believe that the accounts that would be kept ought to be still continued to be kept and set out in the way identified in the Stein report at 16.1. The responsibility for presenting the accounts and the money that has been made in terms of our leasehold system, the money that has been forgone in terms of lost revenue, is "as near as practicable" as is set out in table 16.1 of the report. We have carefully chosen the words "as near as practicable" to ensure that the Minister does have room to move there. Nevertheless, I think the intent of the committee is quite clear and ensures that the openness is there. It does seem to the committee that it is possible that the introduction of accrual accounting will allow that sort of accounting system to be presented easily to the public and through an annual report in that way.

Accepting that there are dissenting views in this committee report, I still think it is a particularly valuable report. I think it provides quite a number of very positive recommendations for the Government to reconsider as well as dealing with those issues of dissent. We have not gone through in detail all the recommendations of the Stein report that the Government did accept. Some of them, I recognise, were quite painful for the Government. I make no bones about that, but I realise that the Government has come a long way in accepting quite a number of the recommendations which they certainly did not wish to and which are not particularly consistent with their own background and their own policies.

For me, though, the first thing that was quite fundamental to making our leasehold system work, making our planning system work, was the establishment of the land management authority and the statutory planning authority. That having been said, and realising that this is not likely to be the case, I will continue to monitor the situation and see what I can do to assist the Government to get the best possible outcomes that we can in terms of our leasehold system.

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