Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2408 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Related to those measures was the tabling of the Planning and Land Bill. That bill sets up the structure of the new independent planning authority, as well as the government land development agency. Committee members spent some time examining what that would mean to the structure of planning and land development. They recommended that the Planning and Land Bill not be debated until the consequential amendments, which have been developed, have been tabled in the Assembly and made available for scrutiny and until the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment has an opportunity to consider the package as a whole, to understand how the concepts fit together, and-what is more-consider a review of the land act, which the committee recommended.

The committee understands, as I am sure we all do, that the land act is in need of review and overhaul, and felt it would be appropriate, in conjunction with the tabling and debate on the Planning and Land Bill, for there to be a review of the land act.

As I have said, the government has decided to take a more active role in land development in the ACT. The minister noted that the development will involve existing private sector developers as contractors delivering services on behalf of government, or through joint ventures or public-private partnerships with government. The detail on those vehicles was not available to the committee.

In addition to the benefits the government expects to flow from this approach, the government estimates that its approach to land development will provide an additional $2 million in revenue in the financial year 2004-05 and $17 million in 2005-06. However, the minister did acknowledge that there would be some loss of revenue in the intervening years before those profits or surpluses begin to accrue.

The committee spent some time examining the financial model underpinning the new land development model. The view was expressed that there was a need, in this case, for rigorous independent external scrutiny of that model to occur.

Individual committee members have been assured that the model provides a reliable basis for future policy. The minister reassured the committee that the model had been the product of consultation across a number of ACT government agencies and had been modified in light of experience.

We were told that the assumptions underpinning the model were conservative. Scrutiny of the government's new public sector land development policy was made more difficult through the fact that the details on how we work were not exactly self-evident from the budget papers. For example, the committee noted, in answer to a question, that there were something like 12 separate places in the budget documents where relevant information about the land development program could be obtained, across a number of papers.

Members also asked questions about the structure of the new land development agency and how it would be structured so as to avoid pitfalls which had been experienced in other recent policy initiatives and, indeed, with government-sponsored land development in the territory in the past.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .