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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2030 ..

Negotiations were then initiated with ACTAFL to surrender its interests in accordance with the surrender provisions of its lease. Such surrender arrangements are a usual provision of such leases and there is a provision to compensate for lessee improvements. ACTAFL made it a requirement of the negotiations that there was agreement for the funding to be available in this financial year. Hence, Mr Speaker, the appropriation is sought in the third appropriation bill.

The Koundouris Group has put forward other options in subsequent discussions with the government, including retention of the oval. These discussions occurred after the cabinet decision to accept surrender of the lease and well after negotiations had been advanced.

Earlier this year, some 16 months after the Koundouris proposal was mooted, the Hellenic Club again made a proposal to take over the lease of Phillip oval. Negotiations with ACTAFL for the surrender of its lease were well advanced. It is a matter of government policy to negotiate with ACTAFL for a surrender of the lease and that is why we are continuing to proceed to do so.

The committee’s report, with a dissenting report from Ms MacDonald, also recommended that I apologise to the Assembly for withholding relevant information to the committee on this matter. Mr Speaker, no relevant information has been withheld from the committee and I do not believe that an apology is warranted.

In my response to the committee to a question from the chair, I advised that “ACTAFL originally sought my consent to sell the oval to a third party”. As is outlined in the attached chronology to the government’s response to the committee’s report, ACTAFL initially approached me for consent to sell the lease to a third party in October 2002. The Hellenic Club’s proposal was put to me almost 18 months later and was not the third party referred to in my evidence to the Estimates Committee.

On Monday, 3 May, at 3.30 pm, I received a letter from Mrs Cross as chair of the committee, requesting correspondence in relation to the third party. At 4.00 pm, half an hour later on the same day, my office confirmed with the Committee Secretariat that this was the third party referred to in the hearing. My response was provided at 5.15 pm approximately. The committee tabled its report the next day in the Assembly. The third party referred to in the Estimates Committee hearing was the Koundouris Group. All correspondence with me as minister in respect to the third-party approach from the Koundouris Group, as requested by the committee’s chair and clarified by my office with the secretariat, was supplied to the committee.

Mr Speaker, the committee’s report also recommends that the $800,000 intended for the purchase of the lease of Phillip oval be omitted from the third appropriation. I’d like to stress to members that the lease for the oval is a concessional lease which was issued to provide for management of and to allow for the provision of lessee-funded improvements to the oval. Future development rights and the previously constructed improvements such as the oval and other improvements are territory—ie, community—assets.

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