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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (1 July) . . Page.. 1981 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

I have spoken to representatives of the property industry and people involved in the development and construction industry, and I am aware of their concerns. I am aware that they feel the issue of the rate of betterment charged in the Territory should be resolved once and for all, and should be resolved with some speed so that the issue can be set and they can have some certainty.

Mr Speaker, I am prepared to accept those arguments. Members will see in the motion that I have moved today on behalf of the Labor Party that there is a time limit on when this inquiry should report. That is 30 September this year. That allows the Urban Services Committee three months to undertake its investigation - a reasonable amount of time, I would argue, considering that Professor Nicholls has outlined in some detail a range of issues. It also allows this Assembly a further three months to resolve the issue finally before the end of this calendar year. That is not an unreasonable timeline considering the amount of time that has already passed on this issue and the requirement for this Assembly to be confident and to appropriately digest the issues outlined in the Nicholls report.

Mr Speaker, I am concerned that the Government has taken a very pre-emptive and reactionary approach to some of the recommendations in this report. It wants to implement this day, at this sitting, a 50 per cent change of use charge. It wants to do it right now. The Minister this morning has tabled legislation to achieve that purpose. Mr Speaker, the Minister's approach is pre-emptive and in many ways is jeopardising the good faith needed in this place to deal with this matter in a sensible way. Again he is bulldozing ahead on this issue without taking account of the fact that a significant number of members in this place want to see a proper examination of the Nicholls report, want to see it done in a considered way, but want the issues resolved by the end of the year.

That is not an unreasonable ask from this Assembly when this Government took 18 months to get the Nicholls report completed. They had 18 months to get their act together. They wasted the first 12 months by not doing anything, not even commissioning an author, and they now have the gall to come back to this place and say, "We want you to make a decision next week on the change of use charge level". That is not an acceptable approach from this Government. It is pre-emptive, it is reactionary, and members in this place should not support it.

Mr Speaker, the issues surrounding betterment are very complex. There is a range of issues that the Labor Opposition does not feel have been appropriately addressed in the report. That is another reason why we would like to see an Assembly committee take on the report, look at the issues and report to this Assembly. One of those issues involves the use of remissions in relation to the change of use charge. Remissions can be a very important element of the operation of the change of use charge. They can reflect the need for public interest purposes in terms of what should be the rate of change of use charge levied, which means providing discounts if it is in the public interest to do so to encourage development or redevelopment. That issue is not, we believe, adequately addressed in the report, and we believe it is appropriate that this Assembly ask the Urban Services Committee to undertake that investigation.

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