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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2423 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

The reason why the motion has come up now rather than eight months ago is that, whilst we were aware of the letter, we were not aware of the nature of the legislation. I think it is entirely reprehensible. The letter was written in September. It was not tabled in September. There were questions asked in December. It was tabled only then. The Minister, knowing that everyone in this Assembly opposed it, continued discussions without ever venturing once to mention it to one Assembly colleague or in any way say that this matter was coming up. I first heard of it from my colleagues on the hill, saying, "Hey, McRae, what do you know about these 999-year leases?". That is enough, in my opinion, for censure and no confidence.

Secondly, the nonsense about euthanasia that Mr Humphries raised, as Mr Berry quite rightly pointed out, shot his argument entirely in the foot. The Assembly had one opinion about euthanasia; the Commonwealth Government had another. The Assembly has one opinion about 999-year leases; the Commonwealth Government has now been taken to have another. It is not good enough. If you are doing something for the ACT Government on behalf of the Assembly, the Minister must keep us informed, and he did not. He moved from his intention. He told us nothing between September and now. Furthermore, he has actively worked within the business community to give an entirely different impression of what the legislation was all about.

We have a very fortuitous letter today from Warwick Smith. However, we still have not seen the Bill, so we are taking everybody at face value as to what the Bill actually does. There is no statute. There is no common law in regard to 999-year leases. There is no clear understanding yet of the potential impact - even if it is legislative law, whether it enables or does not enable the ACT - on Federal land, or other land. As Ms Reilly pointed out, it gives the Government the capacity. The capacity can be by regulation, by ministerial policy or by decree. We are being told that it is going to be by legislation, but we have not seen any of that. We have nothing to assure us of that. None of us have been taken into confidence. None of the Assembly colleagues whose support Mr Humphries will need to pass this legislation have been spoken to.

Mr Humphries has been going out of his way to systematically create an impression with his comments which have been quoted twice now. In speaking about Federal Government activity, the "us" in "allow us" suddenly becomes the Assembly. Of course, we cannot censure Mr James Service for what he says, but this is the impression that Mr Humphries created on the part of Mr Service, who listened to Mr Humphries's entire speech, the press, who listened to Mr Humphries's speech, and everyone else who listened to Mr Humphries's speech at the Property Council lunch. Mr Service, in his response, does not once say, "I will now go and lobby the Assembly members. I hope to get that recalcitrant McRae in line to fix up 999-year leases. I will go and get that dreadful Mr Berry and sort him out". Does Mr Service say that? No. The impression was clearly created. It was clearly and deliberately created with the Property Council.

Mrs Carnell: You cannot censure somebody for that, even if it is right.

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