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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 3743 ..
MR KAINE (continuing):
the points that you are making". They appear to have done that. I am advised that they have obtained the best possible legal advice in Australia. I do not know the source of that advice, but the Minister, I think, should note that.
Senior rural and leasing valuation advice has also been obtained and these sources have provided consistent professional opinion confirming the worst of the lessees' concerns, reflected in three fairly short statements which I think the Minister should take careful note of. I quote from the first of those statements:
The proposed amendments to key sections of the Land Act appropriate lessees' rights and are beyond the authority of the ACT Legislative Assembly.
As a result, the legal advice suggests the amendments would be invalid. The second point is:
Key provisions of the existing Land Act also appropriate rights without compensation and are therefore beyond the powers of the Assembly and are invalid.
The third statement is:
It is possible that they may also be invalid in respect of other leases of land within the ACT, including other kinds of rural leases and residential and commercial leases.
These are very significant comments. The advice also identifies invalid parts of other related Acts, which may have implications beyond the ACT. The effect, I am told, of passage of the proposed amendments would be to open the ACT community to substantial compensation claims. This might also be the case because of problems with the existing Act. My understanding is that this organisation has attempted to put this to the Minister and he has told it to go away and get legal advice. This suggests that they have now received it. That advice, if accurately conveyed in those three sections that I have just read out, raises very serious questions as to the legality of what the Government is proposing.
I do not know whether the Minister and the Government want to go ahead with this, in light of that sort of advice. But it raises very serious questions in my mind as to whether we should be enacting legislation until those issues are resolved by the Government. I have not had access to the legal advice. I have not had a chance to verify in any way how substantive it is. But if the advice to me is substantive, and it seems to be, I think it raises serious questions about what the Government is proposing to do. In fact, it raises questions about sections of the existing legislation. Perhaps before we move to a debate on this legislation, the Minister will respond to those statements as to whether he believes that they ought to be a matter for concern to the Government and this legislature or not.
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