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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 8 Hansard (24 August) . . Page.. 2290 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Moreover, Mr Speaker, I made it clear to the Legislative Assembly in 1997 in tabling the disallowable instrument which would facilitate these sorts of grants, particularly in respect of McKellar, that it was no longer a development which had particular environmental initiatives associated with it. I quote from my statement to the Assembly on that particular day. I have not got the date but it was in 1997. I said:

So we made it clear two years ago that there was not going to be any environmental - - -

Ms Tucker: We are asking the questions now. They still deserve answers.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, but you asked the question, "How come they got this direct dealing with the land?", and I am telling you it was not because, as you have suggested in your press release, they originally had some environmentally innovative aspect of their development. It was because they were undertaking to put an investment into the development of local shops at McKellar.

Ms Tucker: Well, lots of developers would like to do that. Why is it a direct grant?

MR HUMPHRIES: It as an investment of something like $100,000 in the sustainability of the McKellar local shops. That kind of investment is what many local shops in the ACT need at the moment. If a developer is prepared to come along and pay the market value for the land that they are going to get to develop, plus put in $100,000 for local centre development, this Government will be in that kind of arrangement.

Ms Carnell: Every day.

MR HUMPHRIES: Any day and every day.

Ms Tucker: So you get a direct grant if you give some money? Okay.

Mr Quinlan: Why not go for 150 grand?

Ms Tucker: That is a great planning process.

MR HUMPHRIES: Well, maybe it would. But they were coming forward in respect of McKellar. But they were offering that money in respect of that. We could have gone to an open process of competing with the market, but the fact is that when you go to the market in that way you tend to get people bidding the highest price for the land they are going to build on, and that minimises the amount that they put to one side for projects outside the land they are bidding for.

Mr Quinlan: It is not beyond the wit of mankind to evaluate those, surely.

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