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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2533 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The other issue is the question of the process being used here to arrive at the point where a lease was granted to Tokich Homes, because the original applicants were not actually Tokich Homes. They were five people, two of whom were people by the surname of Tokich. I think in this respect there is less concern in my mind and the Government's mind about the process that has been used. Certainly, what happened was that a number of changes occurred along a path that took over two years to travel that resulted in different people applying and different people receiving a lease at the end of the day. That is perfectly true. Yes, Ms Tucker, it is true.

Ms Tucker: Who applied to begin with?

MR HUMPHRIES: There were five people who applied originally as Eco-Land to be considered.

Ms Tucker: A formal development application.

MR HUMPHRIES: Okay, Ms Tucker. You can have a say in the adjournment debate about this.

Ms Tucker: All right. Okay. Go on.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am putting it to you that originally five people approached the Government about developing that block of land. Those people described themselves as Eco-Land. The impression was created at the time, perhaps, that Eco-Land was a company and they were shareholders or directors of that company; that having come forward it was the expectation at that point that these people would take their application forward and they would get their lease at the end of the day if they satisfied all the criteria.

They did not do that. The five people apparently had a falling out. In any case, something happened to not allow all five of them to proceed. Certainly, the name Eco-Land, which was associated with the application in the first place and was admittedly used on a number of occasions in respect of the application, was abandoned or fell to one side in the process going forward.

Ms Tucker, no doubt, would assert that the thing got its first legs on the basis of it being an environmentally sensitive development under a very warm and sexy name like Eco Land when in fact there was no such connection with this development and it should not have had that name associated with it. She may be right, but the point is that in these processes it is a fact of life that relevant details do change and organisations change. In respect of a matter which might be considered a joint venture, or a partnership or some other kind of corporate or non-corporate entity which comes forward to deal with the Government, the composition of that may change over time.

In this case it did change. The government officers who dealt with this initially probably thought this group called Eco-Land was a company of some kind. It was not a company. It was in fact a group of individuals who came forward wanting to take a lease. By the time the lease was at a point of being offered it was clear that they were not Eco-land but were in fact Tokich Homes Pty Ltd. Also, the proposal had changed a bit in the

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