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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3374 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

do on its lease. I just do not understand the attitude that says no to everything that it comes up with.

I wonder what sort of proposal the club might come up with that Mr Corbell and Ms Tucker would find acceptable. They have given no indication that they would find anything acceptable. Now, that is a sort of a dog-in-the-manger attitude that I find rather odd.

In terms of my feeling that there is a lot of conjecture in this debate, Mr Corbell raised the rhetorical question: how sure are we that the hotel development will proceed? It was akin to Ms Tucker saying, "They've only put this forward as blackmail to force us back to the original proposal as a better alternative." Personally, Mr Speaker, I do not attribute those sorts of motives to the members of the board of the golf club. That assumes that these are devious people who seek some sort of gain that they are not entitled to, and that they are blackmailing or trying to force us by some unusual method to go back to the original proposal.

First of all, if Mr Corbell or Ms Tucker think that the hotel/conference centre proposal will not go forward if that is the only option available to the club, I think they will lose on the bluff if they call it.

My understanding is that the club has already spent a considerable sum of money on developing this proposal. It did not do that lightly. It has had a pre-application meeting with the land planning managers to identify any problems that might emerge so that it can go away and address them. And, incidentally, despite the lapse of time since this project has been declared publicly by the Federal Golf Club, at no time has PALM said, "You may not proceed as of right under your lease."

If PALM believed that there is no right, why has it not said so? Why has it not stopped the club cold in its tracks by saying, "This is not permissible." It has not done so because it is permissible, and the club is quite within its rights to go ahead. And if Mr Corbell or Ms Tucker think that this is just some bluff, then I can assure them they are wrong.

The club is entitled to do what it has proposed to do. It has a necessity for it, because it needs the money to do essential work on the club, and it will go ahead, I am absolutely confident, regardless of the outcome of this debate today. Most of those same opponents talked about this windfall gain. It is not a windfall gain. It is a club using the resources available to it, which it is entitled to do, to raise money to do essential work. It is like saying, "You can't do anything on your own property because it's a windfall gain"-in your own house; it is the same thing.

These people have a lease. They have got a business operating there-or a club, whatever you like to call it-and they are entitled to use the asset to advance their activities. It is not a windfall gain at all, and they have already said that they are not going to use this money to build a Taj Mahal golf club; they are going to use it to improve the facilities so that the viability of the golf club and the golf course in the future is guaranteed. Where is the windfall gain in that?

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