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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4024 ..

Proposed new clause 4A.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (12.22): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name, which inserts new clause 4A [see schedule 2 at page 4103].

The government is moving this amendment. It clarifies the relationship of section 181 to the new section 180 (2A) by adding the appropriate cross-references. This is an administrative matter only, and I commend the amendment to members.

Proposed new clause 4A agreed to.

Clause 5.

MRS DUNNE (12.23): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 4102].

Mr Speaker, unfortunately this is a slightly wordy amendment. It does two things simultaneously: it removes categorically the charge for transferring the lease from the first leaseholder, that is, the land developer, to the builder or the home owner who wants to buy a block of land and build a house on it or the builder who is building a spec house—a house and land package.

As things currently stand—and I know in the current legislation there is provision for charging for the transfer of the first lease, the crown lease, to the individual builder—I think there is general agreement that it is fairly inappropriate, especially in the current climate when we are talking about housing affordability. As I said in the in-principle speech, the Housing Industry Association, the Commonwealth Bank and other august bodies have put together fairly comprehensive information about how government charges add significantly to housing affordability. This, whilst potentially only a modest charge, is one of those charges.

Let’s take an example of Harrison stage 1, which was eventually sold for, I think, about $64 million. The government reaped $64 million from the sale of the raw land. It also reaped the stamp duty on that sale. There are a whole lot of fees associated with lodging the plans for the development of the site—laying down the services, et cetera—and, after those blocks are developed, the developer acquires the first lease. That lease may be on-sold to a builder who might build a spec house and then sell it to a home buyer. There are two more sets of stamp duty in that process. As things currently stand, there are potentially three sets of charges for the transfer of lease.

Alternatively, the builder may sell directly to a home buyer who wants to go out and find his own architect and build his dream home. So there may be only one transfer but then, potentially, again some stamp duty on that transfer and another charge for transferring the first lease, the original lease, to the person who is going to hold it. What happens in this process is that we all know that the person who goes out and bids for Harrison stage 1 or Gordon stage 9 or anything like that is not going to be the person who builds the houses; it is almost never the person who is going to build the houses. That first lease

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