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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 2 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 418 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

There was no prospect of repayment of these amounts prior to the time the government's guarantee was to take effect. That, of course, considerably exposed the ACT community and the ACT taxpayer. The Carnell government had to prop up the agreement with a $20 million loan to make sure that it stayed afloat and development continued of that precinct. Mr Speaker, it was a mess, an absolute mess. It took two years and a bevy of law firms to work out how the whole arrangement worked and it was subject to a scathing report by the Auditor-General.

We do not know exactly what kind of model Mr Corbell might be proposing for the ACT, but that is the kind of model of debt and loss that we get into potentially when the ACT becomes involved in planning development. There is a good reason that, generally speaking, governments do not get involved in land development, here or most other places in the world, that is, because it is an inherently risky enterprise. The government is out in the marketplace and cannot control all the aspects of the market, and where it cannot control the market it is exposed to risk.

Mr Speaker, one of the major themes of many public reports in the ACT in recent years has been the minimisation of risk. Mr Corbell points out that there is a better return for a refined product than an unrefined product, referring to the government investing in land development as a way of getting a better return at the end of the day. Yes, that is true. If you put in $X and can guarantee that the product will be worth $XX at the end of the day, you are going to get some sort of profit or return. But you cannot guarantee that you will get $XX or any other particular amount. For places like Harcourt Hill, the territory got minus $X, minus $XX and minus $XXX in some cases. That was quite disastrous and not a good example of state involvement in development processes.

I would echo the concerns that Mrs Dunne has put on the table in this debate about the plans of the Labor government. The establishment of an independent planning authority, in particular, needs to be looked at very carefully. We are told that the independent planning authority will be independent because giving directions to the planning authority will need to take place on the floor of this Assembly. Mr Speaker, that depends very much on whom you employ in the authority, how they are employed, their tenure there, and the ongoing relationship they have with the rest of the public service. If the members of the planning authority are ordinary public servants who require continuing employment within the public service, are we guaranteeing that they will not accept a tacit nod and a wink direction from government on an ongoing basis?

Will the public servants in the new independent planning authority have tenure of any sort? It is usually accepted that in setting up an independent decision-making body, such as a tribunal, a court or, for that matter, the really independent planning decision-maker, the Land and Planning Commissioner, set up by the Carnell government, you give them a certain amount of tenure. You cannot revoke their position on the basis that you do not like the decisions that they make. Is that going to be part of this planned independent planning authority? We have not heard that. I can only assume that it will not.

Mr Corbell said that area specific policies will be developed in the ACT. Mr Corbell made a prediction about the national trust's view about endangered suburbs in the ACT. I will make a prediction as well. These area specific plans will be nowhere near being developed in the timeframe provided by the government in the recent election campaign. We will find enormous slippage in that timetable simply because we have had the

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