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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (1 April) . . Page.. 1136 ..

MR SMYTH: For the benefit of the Treasurer, I will speak slowly. Well then, Treasurer, does that mean that budget paper 3, on page 163, which clearly says that only $250,000 was allocated to the economic white paper, is wrong? Or can you confirm that the table headed "Changes to appropriation"on page 35 of budget paper 4 shows how the $250,000 previously allocated in 2001-02 has been rolled over in 2002-03 and is only spent once?

MR QUINLAN: I could not find page 163, so I will just rely on budget paper 4, page 35, which says that in 2002-03 the expenditure will be $500,000. Do you agree with that? If the other budget paper says something different and there is a contradiction here, that is probably a misprint. That is the best I can do. If any further explanation is required that arises from a look at budget paper 3, page 163, I will get back to you.

Land development

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, my question to the Minister for Planning relates to the independent analysis of the government's financial modelling for government land development. Could the minister inform the Assembly of the report's findings on the robustness of the financial model?

MR CORBELL: Members may recall that one of the recommendations of the Estimates Committee report from last year was that the financial modelling underpinning the government's land development agency be subject to an independent assessment. The government agreed to that recommendation and I would like to outline briefly to members what the results of that were.

Firstly, it is important to note that the government conducted a tender process to choose the consultant to undertake the financial assessment, and Rawlinsons Management were the successful tenderer. I am very pleased to advise the Assembly that the government's confidence in its financial modelling for land development has been vindicated. The report has found that the government's model is correct in both its methodology and its assumptions.

I note that Mrs Dunne has changed her tack on this subject. She is no longer talking about risk to government; she is now talking about affordability. Of course, she can no longer talk about risk to government when the report has found that the assumptions the government may have made are conservative by approximately 20 per cent, based on market sales over the past 12 months. That is a very significant level of conservatism built into the financial modelling for government land development.

Mr Smyth: You got lucky, Simon.

MR CORBELL: Mr Smyth interjects that we got lucky. Of course, the government undertook a very rigorous proposal. I am really interested to hear what the next argument from Mrs Dunne is going to be, because for the last six to 12 months she has been out there saying, "This is too dangerous, this is too risky, this is financially unacceptable. It will cost the territory an enormous amount of money."Apart from the opposition being wrong on all of those counts, the government is very pleased to see that the independent assessment has actually identified that the government will get a better return than we have anticipated.

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