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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (14 February) . . Page.. 101 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of Mr Corbell's bill is that it achieves nothing. None of the promises he made to this Assembly on 7 December have been delivered in what he has put forward here. On that day the Assembly decided that the rate of change should not remain at 75 per cent but should go to 100 per cent from 31 January this year. That day has come and gone, but still Mr Corbell's very specific way of remitting change of use charge is not evident. Where is the targeted tool for specific policy outcomes that he referred to in September? Where are the specific policy-related proposals? They are not here, unless stated land is that target.

This bill takes the two existing remissions, changes one and then puts them into the act. Members should note that the Commissioner for Housing, under Mr Corbell's and Labor's proposal, would pay only 75 per cent change of use charge rather than the current longstanding 50 per cent. They speak about supporting public housing, yet they are going to make sure that added money is spent not on the tenants but on change of use charge.

We have a quite different system for providing for other remissions. They are to be determined by instrument. It seems that those instruments could say just about anything, because there is no guidance in the proposed legislation about what remissions might be granted or for how much. The proposal does not go forward as we were promised. It simply heightens the existing confusion that the government has been trying to secure this Assembly's agreement to remove.

All the remissions and increases should be found in one place, not some in the act and some in disallowable instruments. This act does not have an appropriate location for a few examples of the wider range of policy decisions. Therefore, if it is not in the regulations, all remissions and increases should be disallowable instruments, not some in the act and some out of the act.

Further, the instruments then should provide for mandatory remissions or increases, as this Assembly has accepted on numerous occasions in the past, providing for discretion in this area, particularly as the amount involved creates confusion and the exercise of discretion will always be open to challenge, whether that be political or legal. For example, the proposals for residential redevelopment at any local centre may attract a charge of 50 per cent, whilst proposals for dwellings on service station sites being redeveloped should, and do, attract a 100 per cent charge. Two blocks side by side in a local centre will attract different charges or different remissions in an attempt to achieve the same purpose. What Mr Corbell proposes is unclear.

As members would be aware, the government is committed to a rate of charge of 50 per cent. We have said that, but we accept that the Assembly is not willing to move that far. However, if it was to remain at 75 per cent, that would be appropriate, would offer certainty and stability, and would remove the ever-changing sunset clause. I will be bringing forward amendments-I think they are being distributed now-that will secure 75 per cent, remove the sunset clause and give certainty to something that has been a moveable feast over the last 10 years.

At best, Mr Corbell proposes only a basic framework on which to build a regime of targeted remissions of change of use charge. Not only does his bill fail to achieve anything that is not already available under the act; it does not propose any targets. Even

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