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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2415 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

meaning this Assembly -

not to do it by itself -

that is, the Federal Government not to do it by itself -

not to have the Federal Parliament create that tenure by an enactment that imposes on the ACT, a la the Andrews Bill, but rather to allow the ACT Assembly to enact that if it so chooses. When I made the commitment that Mr Berry refers to there was a Labor government in power federally, and I certainly could not speak for a Federal Labor government, much less than I could speak for a Federal Liberal government.

That was the position that had been stated in response to Stein restated as recently as December last year. At that stage members of this place sought information about what it was that we had actually said to the Federal Government. The issue was raised then. It was put to us then that we were being inconsistent in our public statements about what we had sought from the Federal Government.

In accordance with the openness that we have shown in these matters, we tabled the correspondence between the ACT and Federal governments. When Mr Corbell spoke on this matter, he said, "The Government has now shown the letter between the ACT and Federal governments". Wrong. The Government tabled that letter on 12 December last year. If you are making out a case that I misled the Assembly or mismanaged the planning system, why have you waited eight months from the time that letter was first tabled to raise that point? That now appears to be the basis on which much of this motion today rests. The fact is that we laid on the table in an open fashion - I note the Greens' comments about going behind the backs of the Assembly - that letter, in which the Chief Minister, writing to the Federal Minister, said:

I seek your government's support to amend the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act -

that is a Federal Act -

to remove the 99 year restriction on the majority of leases in the Territory, the objective being to provide for longer term leases for residential and Aboriginal interests in particular.

This is the second piece of evidence I want to turn to. If it had been the intention of the ACT Government to get the Federal Government to do the deed on our behalf, to enact 999-year leases on our behalf, and forget about that pesky ACT Assembly, surely the Chief Minister would have said to the Minister for Territories, "I seek your support to remove the 99-year restriction".

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Minister, your time has expired.

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