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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1809 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

It is not as if the Commissioner for Housing can go and throw a great big party for everyone in Canberra every time he makes a windfall gain from not paying 100 per cent betterment. So, it is not money that is lost to the people of the ACT. It is hypothecated and it is used in a particular case.

As I say, I have no problem with the argument that perhaps that is wrong and perhaps we should have land accounts and we should have a process of transferring the money so that it is transparent that this is what is happening. But, in my head, it is transparent. In my head, it is quite clear that the ACT is not losing the money. We may, in this debate, be foreshadowing a policy change. That is fine. Particularly when the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement is changed, at that point we may have to come back to this and make sure that we do not let it slip away from us. Of course, the properties can be onsold and profit can be made; but, again, even if it does then move to a private landowner after having been Commissioner for Housing property, the profit will come back to housing in the ACT. So, I will not support Mr Moore in this instance; but I am, again, quite sympathetic to his arguments and I think that the matter deserves another look at another time.

The third area is where we remove "may" and put in "shall". One of the points, if we did agree with Mr Moore, is that in the Act it applies to remissions as well as increases, whereas the regulations are only about remissions. So, we have an anomaly there. Again, I am very sympathetic to what Mr Moore is saying, because it underlies what I am saying, which is that, as far as possible, ministerial discretion should be circumscribed and controlled by the Assembly. This is one way to make sure that we understand exactly when a Minister will and will not give increases or remissions. I believe that the policy should be an entirely open one and, even in the area of discretion, it should be guided by either regulation or rules. I do not think that changing it in this instance will do that. We know that the Land Act is coming back for review later this year. As Mr Moore says, it is not a difficult amendment to make, although the consequential amendments will be quite horrific. We are quite sympathetic to looking at the implications of removing the word "may" from the Land Act and putting in "shall" and then looking at the implications of that across the board to ensure that the rules are in place.

Let me reiterate. I do not support Mr Moore. That is not because he is wrong, in many instances - I think that in this case he is right - but this is neither the right time nor the right regulation to put in those changes. I think that many of the policy issues that we are debating deserve another look. In finishing, I just reiterate the point that I, for one, and my party do not concur that there is, has been or will be any corruption on the part of the Minister if he is allowed specifically well-stated and circumscribed discretions.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Housing and Family Services) (11.38): Mr Speaker, there are three proposals in Mr Moore's amendments to the regulations which would affect public housing. Firstly, there is the amendment to regulation 12B. Boundary variations are currently exempt from payment of betterment under the regulations. The amendment proposed would subject boundary variations to betterment at 75 per cent of the added value of the land gained in any alteration to a boundary. On occasions, ACT Housing does have to propose realignments of boundaries. This is something that occurs now and again. An example which will be

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