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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3366 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

cannot assert that it is more undesirable because he does not even know what the thing is going to look like.

Further, Mr Kaine suggests that the Assembly should agree with the club when it asserts that it can pursue a hotel/motel-type development as an as-of-right development consistent with its lease purpose clause. I think that question is a very open one. If you look at the lease purpose clause of the Federal Golf Club, you will see that it says that the lease "allows for a golf club and for purposes incidental thereto"-"incidental thereto". Now, I would suggest that it is unlikely-not impossible but unlikely-that a hotel/motel development could simply be considered as incidental to the purposes of running a golf club.

Indeed, I sought a briefing from officers of PALM, through the minister's office, on this very issue. The advice I received was that they were looking closely at the lease purpose clause, that they were asking the club to demonstrate how a hotel/motel would be incidental to the purposes of running a golf club and that they would be seeking advice from the Government Solicitor on the interpretation of the lease purpose clause.

Mr Moore: A proper process.

MR CORBELL: That is a very proper process, as Mr Moore interjects. But until that process is completed we cannot accept the assertion made by Mr Kaine that the club can simply proceed with a hotel/motel development. There are too many unanswered questions.

Bearing all that in mind, we also have to consider the decision that was made by this place just over a year ago. Mr Kaine said that the Assembly had short-circuited the process. Well, no, the Assembly did not short-circuit the process; the Assembly played its role in the process. Under the land act, the Assembly has the option, if a majority of members in this place believe it is warranted, to effectively veto a proposal to vary the Territory Plan-to disallow it. The Assembly agreed that it was appropriate to assert that right. So there was no short-circuiting of the process-far from it. There was a very detailed discussion, as I am sure the club would attest.

Mr Kaine also made the point in his speech that he believes if members had been fully aware of the consequences of rejecting the variation they would not have done so. Well, I disagree with Mr Kaine on that, and the reason I do that is that it is made very clear in the report of the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services, which considered this issue last year and reported to the Assembly on it, and in the evidence presented to that committee, that the club had always asserted it believed it had the right to pursue a hotel/motel development.

The club asserted that. There was a public statement made by the club. I am sure Mr Rugendyke can attest to that-that that was an issue which was raised during the public hearings. The club, at the time, said it did not want to do that; it did not believe it to be the best option. The club asserted during that time that it wanted a draft variation to the Territory Plan because it believed residential was the best form of development.

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