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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4022 ..

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (12.13): Mr Speaker, the opposition’s new section 181, builders’ exemption, if passed, would provide an exemption for builders whereby they could effectively transfer leases between themselves without obtaining the consent of the ACT Planning and Land Authority, provided that the two parties held the appropriate licence and the transfer occurred within one year of either party becoming lessee. This would potentially allow for an ongoing series of transfers, despite the fact that the general residential lease requires construction to commence within 12 months of the date of the lease. The government’s concern—and the reason we will not be supporting this amendment—is that it effectively allows for an open-ended and ongoing arrangement for transfers without any approval by the regulatory authority.

The only other categories of transfer allowed without the need for the authority’s consent relate to major events, such as death, bankruptcy and divisions of property resulting from the dissolution of marriages or domestic relationships or where the leaseholder has complied with the building and development conditions and has obtained the requisite compliance certificate.

The amendment, as proposed by Mrs Dunne, would continue to allow the practice of land speculation, of which the authority is aware. This practice effectively allows builders to transfer leases without complying with the building covenants in those leases while contributing to an increase in the cost of residential land and ultimately decreasing housing affordability. This exemption is not in the same category as the other transfers that I have mentioned above, and the government does not support the amendment.

MS DUNDAS (12.15): Mr Speaker, although I have not seen evidence that Canberra builders buy and sell undeveloped land for profit, I am not willing to support an amendment that leaves that possibility open. What applies to individuals should apply to business people, in this case, as well. I do not want there to be any financial incentive left for anyone to hold on to land that they are not building on. Builders have the option of applying to surrender leases to the territory if they have financially overextended themselves, and I understand that applications for surrender are never actually refused; so there are ways that builders can work through problems if they arise.

I do not believe that builders need a special provision simply to make it more convenient for them to swap leases with other builders or make decisions to re-sell undeveloped land. If our focus here is stopping land speculation, then we should not leave any loopholes, such as would be left by this amendment.

MS TUCKER (12.16): The Greens have similar views to Ms Dundas on this one. It allows builders who have taken on a block to transfer the title to another builder within a year. The argument is that the building business is not a certain thing and that warranty and other requirements can fall through, leaving a builder unable to commence the job. To exempt builders from the control of lease transfer, they can on-sell the property to another builder within a year.

The next section of the act, section 182 (2) (b) (i), however, does permit the authority to consent to such a transfer if it is satisfied that the lessee cannot for personal or financial reasons comply with the building or development conditions. That would seem to leave

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