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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3514 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

One of the principles of the good administration of land in the ACT is that land, once released by the government, can be developed for the purposes for which it was sold. That is what occurred in relation to this site. This land was sold for a purpose. The development of the land was consistent with the Territory Plan, approved by this place. This place approved the Territory Plan land use policy that permitted development on that site. How contradictory is it for members to come into this place now and say, "No. We are not asking you to vary the Territory Plan but we do not want you to develop this land."The development of this land was permitted for that use and the land was sold to allow that use to occur, and it was done with the sanction of this place.

I am responsible, Mr Speaker, for making sure that that process is upheld and that that process continues to work fairly and equitably for all concerned.

Let me go to the substance of Ms Dundas's motion. She said in her motion:

There are no ifs or buts in this motion, Mr Speaker. There is no "try to negotiate". There is no "try to negotiate but, if you do not succeed, that is fine."The motion says, "negotiate to achieve this outcome"-no ifs, no buts. It says you must negotiate to get a land swap or you have to provide suitable compensation. It says you must provide for a land swap or you must provide suitable compensation.

That is an unreasonable motion: to direct this government to do certain things when there was no money provided for the compensation of that party, when no other equivalent land was available and when other land in the town centre was already designated for other uses.

What I was doing, as was the previous government, was what was consistent with the Territory Plan. We were upholding the contract entered into by the territory and the leaseholder for the use of that land. What this Assembly is asking me to do is ignore the contractual obligation between the territory and the leaseholder, to ignore the provisions of the Territory Plan, and to go ahead and swap the land or pay compensation-no ifs, no buts.

There were other ways of addressing this proposition. The Assembly could have requested me to vary the Territory Plan, but it did not. I do not think that necessarily would have solved the problem but it would have been a more logical way to go. What it should have said was, "We believe the land use policy on this site is inappropriate."However, that is not what the Assembly said. The Assembly said nothing about the land use policy. The Assembly said, "The land use policy is fine. We just do not want you to sell this block of land."That does not make sense but that is what the Assembly asked me to do.

Mrs Dunne: No, we did not discuss this. Point of order, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Order, members!

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