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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 966 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

on whether or not investment and development proposals went ahead in the ACT. This Government is not prepared to question that. This Government is prepared to roll over and give away 50 per cent of the Territory's land as a completely indirect, non-transparent and untargeted subsidy to development in the ACT. That is a rip-off to the Canberra community. It is a ripping off of the Canberra community.

This Government's response today is, quite frankly, an extraordinary concession. They are saying that the leasehold system will no longer be relevant in planning and land management in the ACT if they have their way. I note that in point (b) of his outline of the Government's response the Minister states that development applicants should be required, before receiving final approval for a lease variation, to submit to the Territory valuations to be used to determine the CUC payable. The applicant is to provide valuations. I am sure they have no vested interest in the level of valuation that is to made and, therefore, how much they will pay. I find it quite extraordinary that the applicant will have to provide the Territory with valuations.

This runs contrary to the recommendation of my dissenting report which states that the most sensible way of achieving certainty and transparency in the level of CUC charged was to implement a development rights register, as was outlined in the report into the administration of ACT leasehold to provide greater certainty for prospective developers.

The Government's response did not address the substantive issue. The Government simply said that it has looked at this report before and it is not going to talk about it any more. This Assembly should be talking about it. This Assembly should be protecting the public interest in the amount of money it receives for the sale of development rights - the sale of rights held by the community and provided to the developer.

The Government just wants to give those rights away. If the Government continues down this course, there will be a substantial debate in this place about exactly what should occur with the leasehold system. It will find that there will be a very strong argument that the public interest is being abandoned. The Government is giving away 50 per cent of the improved value of land because it believes it is a disincentive to investment, even though there is no substantive evidence which backs up that claim. It is entirely anecdotal. The evidence presented to the Standing Committee on Urban Services confirmed that the change of use charge was only one factor in decision-making by developers in whether or not a particular development proposal should proceed.

If that is the type of logic that this Government is going to use in justifying a massive subsidy to the development industry and in justifying a massive giving away of the community's assets, then it is going to have a very hard argument to make in this place. This Government's response is completely inadequate. It is a signal that this Government has no commitment to the leasehold system and no commitment to protecting the public's interest in the land of the ACT - land held under a leasehold system on behalf of all residents of this city and residents of the nation overall.

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