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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 666 ..

MRS DUNNE: Can I have that withdrawn, please? I do not know that it is appropriate to say that a member is lazy.

MR SPEAKER: Give me the detail of your point of order.

MRS DUNNE: My point of order is that the minister interjected that I had not asked because I was lazy. I think that that is inappropriate and should be withdrawn.

MR SPEAKER: It is highly provocative, but—

MRS DUNNE: If you do not want to withdraw it, okay, fine.

MR SPEAKER: It is highly provocative, but I do not think I can rule it out.

MRS DUNNE: Oh, you can be highly provocative, okay. Don’t tempt me, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: I know that that is something that is foreign to you, Mrs Dunne.

MRS DUNNE: Absolutely, Mr Speaker. I do thank members for their support. I hope that the list will be comprehensive. I hope that the list that comes forward will have been run past the adviser in the policy group in CMD who seems to be keeping an eye on aged care for the Chief Minister. The original intent of this motion was to incorporate that, but there does not seem to be any role for the Chief Minister in ageing and the motion was amended. But I would like to see some informal participation by the Chief Minister, because he is obviously keeping his department with a close eye on this issue.

A number of issues have been raised in this debate, the most provocative ones being those from the Minister for Planning. I think that the one that requires most comment is that, because this Assembly signed off on the variation to land use policy in relation to community use, we signed off on an approach which means that you go at the absolutely minimalist pace. We did sign off on a process and the planning and environment committee, of which I am the chair, agreed to a change in the land use policy because it was sensible and it was seen to address the needs of the community. In fact, there were members of the community who were waiting in anticipation for that land use change so that they could forward some proposals to the government.

But at no stage in any of that discussion with the community or when the planning and environment committee looked at it did it ever cross anyone’s mind or was it raised by the government or any of the officials that they would contemplate charging a betterment tax for community land that cannot be disposed of. Using the Aranda example again, the land there is owned by the Catholic Church, which has a lengthy lease. It cannot be disposed of, but if they build supported housing on it there is suddenly to be a betterment tax. There is no increased value on the land because the land cannot be disposed of.

The Minister for Planning, even with the low grasp that he has of how the market operates, would recognise that if you cannot sell something it does not have value; therefore, it should not attract a change of use charge. You do have to wonder about what sort of brief the valuers were given if they came away with a change of use charge of $20,000 per dwelling. At no stage in any of the discussion about the change in territory

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