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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3070 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

rather than the community as a whole. With the land set-up in Canberra, it ought to benefit the community as a whole.

We have a freehold system. It was not set up that way. That was not the intention. It is quite logical to allow people to benefit. If people in Queanbeyan want a different system, so be it, but here we can provide a particular benefit to the community. That is something we should not minimise or water down. We should retain 100 per cent.

MR BERRY (9.36): I will refer first to what Mr Hird said. It was not that long ago that Mr Hird was an avid campaigner for a 50 per cent change of use charge. He tried to create the impression that all the world would collapse without it. But tonight he is an avid campaigner for a 75 per cent change of use charge, because the world as we know it will change unless we change to 75 per cent. Coincidentally, the Minister for Urban Services was of the same view. He tried to convince members in this place-and he convinced Mr Rugendyke, as I recall last time-that 50 per cent was the go and that the world would change forever and the ACT just could not go forward without a 50 per cent use charge. Tonight he is saying a 75 per cent use charge is okay; that that is the way forward.

Mr Rugendyke: He wants zero.

MR BERRY: He wants zero. You have to go to the basics here. When it comes to resources, we do not have much in the ACT, compared to other places. We do not have mines and all of those things we can dig up and sell. We have our land, our people, our natural environment and our infrastructure, some of which has been sold.

Every time we dispose of a piece of land, we dispose of it on the basis of its use and we charge the user accordingly. When they change the use of it, we feel entitled to charge them more if the use brings a potentially bigger return for the developer. That is because we represent the people of the ACT. It is their land, in effect. We should turn that money back into useful community purposes rather than giving a windfall gain to an individual. We represent the community interest rather than the individual interest. I think Mr Moore made that point.

I heard Mr Hird and others say we need certainty. I am prepared to put money on this. If we reduced the change of use charge to 50 per cent tomorrow, only a few weeks would pass and somebody would be in here arguing for 25 per cent. If we changed it to 25 per cent, a few weeks would pass and there would be another line-up trying to get it down to zero. If we took it down to zero, it would be only a few more weeks and there would be some in here, the sharp ones, trying to get a subsidy. If we gave them a subsidy, it would be only a few more weeks and there would be another line-up in here trying to get an interest rate subsidy for the loans they had to take out for the development.

Businessmen do what they do best-that is, make money. We do what we do best by protecting the people's interest. The people's interest in this particular debate is their land, what it is used for and what it is worth for a particular use. It is a simple argument. It has been confused by a term not commonly used-"betterment". A lot of people would not understand what that means, unless they were close to the issue. "Change of use charge" would not mean much to a lot of people either. If you reduce betterment charges, the people's land is given away at a value which is less than it should earn.

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