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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2132 ..

MR SPEAKER: Order, please! Come on, grow up, everybody. Thank you.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, the Auditor-General does not audit the budget prospectively; he audits retrospectively. He has to. That is the way it works, Mr Speaker. The capital injection is not repayable. The return will be by way of dividend, as stated previously. Mr Speaker, everything that everyone has asked for has been provided in detail, signed off where appropriate by the Auditor-General; where not appropriate, signed off by the Under Treasurer. Mr Speaker, all of the figures add up. As I explained yesterday, the retrospective legislation is the money that has been spent, signed off by the Auditor-General and audited.

For the prospective Bill, the documentation and the figures have been made available for members. I come back to the fact that the amendments are on the table because the Auditor-General said that this was the way that he thought we should do it. Mr Osborne and Mr Rugendyke said that it was the way that they thought we should do it. We are happy to comply with those requests.

Debate interrupted.

MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Health and Community Care. Yesterday, in answer to a question, the Chief Minister revealed the existence of a Commonwealth Government policy to move to commercial rates of rent on the expiry of subsidised lease agreements. The Chief Minister suggested that this was the basis for the Commonwealth's decision to charge the ACT commercial rent for the Bruce Stadium lease from 2009. She also revealed that, consistent with this policy, the Commonwealth was charging a commercial rent for the extended licence to operate the ACT Hospice at Acton Peninsula. Can the Minister tell the Assembly what rent the ACT is now paying for the Hospice site at Acton?

MR MOORE: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. The annual licence fee of $38,200 is for occupation of the site, plus a one-off administration fee of $1,500.

MR STANHOPE: I ask a supplementary question. Can you tell the Assembly what rent the ACT previously paid for the Acton site? When did the Commonwealth first suggest it would charge a commercial rent for the site, and what case did the ACT mount to continue to pay a peppercorn or subsidised rate for the hospice site?

MR MOORE: The peppercorn rate paid previously was $1. The Commonwealth has changed its policy and now is interested in commercial rents. That is why we are paying $38,200 a year, with an initial term of 12 months, followed by an extension to 31 December 2000.

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