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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4902 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

This is really about that fundamental question of what I call pseudo-perpetual leasehold. We know that the Federal Minister is talking about perpetual leasehold. My understanding, in spite of Mr Humphries's commitment that they would not take any action on perpetual leasehold, is that they actually have taken action on perpetual leasehold. We have that debate yet to come. This is the pseudo-perpetual leasehold. What I am recommending to members here is that we do not take the action that the Government has proposed; that we retain the status quo on this particular issue. I remind members of the Labor Party in particular that this is the legislation that was put through by them and we are talking, in the first place, about the issue of the 30-year rule with residential leases.

It seems to me that there will be two parts to this. I will foreshadow, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, what I will be doing, because they are combined. The second part of this is to not allow a constant run of lease renewals for residentials but to say that when you get towards the end of the lease, within the last 30 years - I imagine that there are very few residential leases in this category now; there may be a few, but it would be a very few - you can apply for the new 99-year lease. You get your 99-year lease; but that will extend the value of the house, without paying the extra charge. You will be able to do it, but there will be a charge associated with it. So there are two parts to it: Retain the 30-year rule and do not allow a no-charge renewal of a lease - apart from the administrative charge, which we are accepting. There should not be charges. For anybody who is living in Canberra for the next 100 years or so there will not be a problem. For most of us it is actually for 150 years or more that there will not be a problem. That will probably allow this Assembly, or one of its successors, at some stage or other, to reconsider whether or not we should go to perpetual leasehold.

I think at the moment we should try to retain, as far as possible, the status quo, while at the same time allowing people the confidence of knowing that their residential lease will be renewed. We are not going too far down the incremental path towards perpetual leasehold. We are still retaining, as much as we can, the strong elements of our leasehold system. I must say on that issue, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, because this is the first time we are really talking in detail about leasehold, that Stein and every other inquiry into the leasehold system has recommended that we strengthen our hold on the leasehold system, not that we weaken it.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (10.40): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is an old expression about people who try to have their cake and eat it too. Mr Moore has adequately demonstrated the phenomenon of trying to have your cake and eat it too. Mr Moore wants to say to us that under his amendments no-one need worry about renewals of their residential leases within the next several generations of Canberrans, yet somehow or other there is something intrinsically wrong with the concept of renewing your lease and it is somehow a fundamental undermining of the leasehold system.

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