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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (27 November) . . Page.. 4789 ..

Land Tax Bill 2003

Mr Quinlan , pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory statement.

Title read by clerk.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, and Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming) (10.50): I move:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, as I said in the previous speech, the Land Tax Bill is also the result of splitting the Rates and Land Tax Act. The bill provides for the imposition of land tax, its payment and exemptions from liability. As mentioned, land tax is imposed on the basis of the use made of the property, or on an owner which is a corporation or trustee, rather than on property owners solely as a consequence of their ownership. As such, land tax is based on an entirely different policy concept to rates and this bill is necessary to provide standalone legislation.

As with the Rates Bill, this bill contains no significant policy changes from the Rates and Land Tax Act. The historical details and difficulties with this act are the same as those in the Rates Bill which I have just introduced into the Assembly. As with the Rates Bill, this bill has no direct or indirect revenue implication. I commend the Land Tax Bill 2003 to the Assembly.

Debate (on motion by Mr Smyth ) adjourned to the next sitting.

Validation of Fees (Cemeteries) Bill 2003

Mr Wood, pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory statement.

Title read by clerk.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and Minister for Arts and Heritage) (10.52): I move:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

This bill is necessary to ensure a legal basis for fees which have been charged for cemetery services between 1 July 2001 and 14 November this year. Regrettably, failures in process have meant that a series of documents prepared to determine cemetery and crematoria fees have not been legally effective. Complicating this, the Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2003, recently commenced, replaced the Cemeteries Act 1933, but no provisions were made to save any existing fee determination under the repealed act, with the consequence that, as of 27 September 2003, when the new act began, there was no determination in place for cemetery fees.

When this situation was brought to light, I determined fees under the relevant provision of the new legislation and these fees were notified on 14 November 2003, effective

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