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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (14 November) . . Page.. 3622 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

agency is bound by the same planning principles as the Planning and Land Authority also being established by the bill.

We also note in relation to the Planning and Land Authority that none of what has been proposed by way of great windfalls, although we did not dwell on this at length, has been tested. We know that there is a pilot program going on at the moment. I would note-this is not so much a view of the committee but my own view-that from briefings that have been received by members and at the estimates we have seen already that this pilot is probably going off the rails.

At estimates and elsewhere we were advised, for instance, that the average price of a block of land under the government's new socialised land development policy would be $85,000, but, at the trial being conducted at Yerrabi stage 2 by the Gungahlin Development Authority in conjunction with private industry, the starting price for blocks of land is $140,000 and the price rises to $175,000, that is, twice the $85,000 planned average price. In discussions at the time the minister brought forward his proposal for land development we were told that $85,000 was a conservative price and that the land prices in Gungahlin at that time, that is, in July, of $101,000 represented abnormal profits and unsuitable profits to be made by the development industry. Suddenly, we are finding that the ACT is proposing to make even larger profits, ranging from $147,000 to $175,000.

The committee also raised a number of times with officials the implications of competition policy for the establishment of the Land Development Agency. Again, we received bland assertions that there were no implications, but at this stage we are not convinced on that and there is advice to the government that the ICRC should look at the competition policy implications before it proceeds. With the Land Development Agency, we have to be cautious. The Land Development Agency is not like Landcom, which is often mentioned by the minister. Landcom is not a monopoly. The minister proposes to establish a full monopoly in the ACT and we have seen only this week that Standard and Poor's have great reservations about the implications of the establishment of that monopoly for the ACT's debt risk.

In addition to these concerns, the committee and members of the community were particularly concerned about the implications of clause 17 (2) of the bill, which delegates to the Land Development Agency the right to issue its own leases, which could be characterised as putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. The committee has specifically recommended that this clause not be proceeded with.

Turning to the principal structure of the Planning and Land Authority, there was generally accepted recognition that it was time for a change and that there needs to be a review and a revivification of the planning structure in the ACT. There is constant evidence that morale in Planning and Land Management is currently low and that there is deskilling. That was raised by me in estimates when I pointed to the fact that about 30 per cent of the staff in Planning and Land Management had turned over in the past year. We have been given bland assurances that everything is okay, but that is not what we are hearing from the community. There is a feeling in the community that there needs to be a change in the structure of PALM so as to re-establish morale. Canberra seems to be giving up its reputation as the pre-eminent planned city of the world by deskilling in PALM and low morale.

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