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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (14 February) . . Page.. 107 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

I am convinced that a 100 per cent change of use charge, full value for the people's asset, is the way to go. Labor came forward with a regime which would have allowed the minister to dispense with change of use charges at one level or another in special circumstances, which is a sensible way forward. The dispensations are given only in special circumstances which give a particular return for the territory. But to argue that we should have a regime under which only half of the value of the people's asset is procured for the community is just a nonsense. I will bet you that if the Liberals were in office and the charge was 50 per cent they would be arguing for 40, 30 or even less, and the line of developers coming in would be arguing that it should be less again. I come back to my original point. If it was nothing, some developers who would come to this place and say, "We have a marvellous idea for you, but we will need a subsidy to do it."

Let us not kid ourselves about what this argument is all about. It is about the development sector-as you would expect them to do, as they are entitled to do-procuring the best outcome for themselves and their shareholders. Our job is to get the best outcome for the community. That is 100 per cent, full value for the people of the ACT.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services) (11.40): As I rose, I was thinking to myself, "Boy, how am I going to feel agreeing with Mr Berry on these issues?" Then it occurred to me that of course that is not the case. Mr Berry is agreeing with me. I often wonder whether, in 1989 and during the years when Labor was in government, the arguments Mr Berry put were the caucus view or his personal view. I understand how it feels to have a view different to that of the government, although not on this matter. Perhaps Mr Berry has seen the light, as has the Labor Party.

I welcome Labor's position. Of course it is something I have strongly argued for for a long time. Mr Berry was rather eloquent in his explanation of what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to protect the community asset, probably our most valuable asset: the land around us. There is an irony in this that never escapes me. The people who push most strongly for less than 100 per cent change of use charge are the same group of people who, if not themselves landlords, are involved with landlords. No landlord in the territory would consider handing over their right to income in the way that is proposed by some in this chamber-the people to the left of me and the people to the right of me on this bench. As I said once before, the person on the right of me is even further to the right. Nowadays I am starting to worry about my back in this matter.

Mr Berry: The types you have chosen to keep company with.

MR MOORE: Indeed, Mr Berry. I acknowledge that interjection. At times we all choose to run along the lines of people who have different views from us. The art is to be able to respect them and respect the fact that they do have different views.

The point I was trying to make is that there is no other landlord-as that is what we are; we are sitting here making this decision as the landlord-who would give away their right to property in this way. If a tenant improves a property-say, paints it and makes it nicer-is the landlord going to hand that value over to the tenant? Not likely. There is no chance of that. That is not the attitude. In fact, a good business attitude-and one would have thought that this would register with some of my colleagues here on these benches-would say, "We have to make sure we protect our investment fully." It would

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