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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 963 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

In the week that the Nicholls report was released, Mr Corbell announced to a meeting of industry representatives that, although he had not had the opportunity to read the report in detail, he would be opposing it. He has been true to his word, and the committee's report is divided into a majority report by the committee from Mr Hird and Mr Rugendyke and a dissenting report from Mr Corbell.

I think this is unfortunate. The committee's process for conducting hearings on the Nicholls report gave every opportunity to members of the academic and general community to come forward and express their views. Many people did so. However, the views expressed in the dissenting report are not entirely reflected in the evidence given to the committee. They are, to an extent, only the views of one member of the committee, and their expression in the dissenting report has served only to divide the power of the committee to deliberate and recommend to the Assembly an appropriate course for the Territory to take on this most important issue.

That aside, the committee's report in total presents to members of this Assembly an opportunity to engage in a detailed examination of the system for charging for development rights in the ACT. It is certainly time that such an examination was undertaken.

If we are fully to meet out obligation to the whole community in considering changes that might flow from the Nicholls report, we must first acknowledge several things. Firstly, the system clearly needs to be changed in some way. It is confusing, costly and extremely cumbersome. Secondly, there has never been a period during which all of the increase in land value has been recovered from lessees, even under the early system that required all lessees to pay rent. Thirdly, if lessees are not entitled to claim any of the increase in the value of their land, they should not pay full value to obtain their lease. Fourthly, it is becoming clear, even to the most traditional commentators, that the pure leasehold system of land tenure is impracticable. There must be some recognition of modern thinking and practices in any review of the change of use charge system. Fifthly, whatever changes are made to the system, this Assembly has a responsibility to ensure that the changes are not undone or compromised in the near future. There must, above all, be some stability in our development approval processes. I think we have had something like seven changes in the last nine years.

The Government's response to the report of the standing committee recognises the value of the committee's work in obtaining and reflecting a broadly based analysis of the Nicholls report. The committee should be congratulated on the determination of its members to hear all the available evidence on this issue and to express its various views in a forthright and dutiful manner.

Also recognised in the Government's response is a very strong message, in the Nicholls report and the report of the committee, that the rate of change of use charge should be returned to 50 per cent - a level that applied for 20 of the last 30 years - and that it should remain at that level pending a longer term examination of the Territory's development rights charging system.

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