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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4026 ..

I said at the outset, that there is currently no fee levied but this legislation allows for that possibility. I want it ruled out definitively. If we are all saying we do not want to do it anyhow, what is the problem with ruling it out definitively?

MS DUNDAS (12.31): I think this amendment goes a little bit further than Mrs Dunne is indicating. It also, besides talking about a fee determination, actually talks about the ability for somebody to speculate on the land if they have not done so in the past two years. That, I think, is a loophole that I cannot support. We have a leasehold system that was devised to prevent land speculation. We know how many people are struggling to enter the property market. If we want to support affordable home ownership, then we should not allow land speculation to continue.

As I indicated in my in-principle speech, I do not think it is acceptable to let people make windfall gains of around $550,000 every couple of years at the expense of people wanting to build their first home. I said that this is what this amendment would actually permit. If Mrs Dunne were interested in talking about just removing that bit that related to allowing a fee in relation to the surrender or transfer of a lease to be levied, then we should have been having that discussion separately from the idea that we can allow somebody to on-sell land if they have not done so in the past two years.

I think that does leave open a loophole for land speculation. It will permit land speculation to continue. I do not have an objection to the removal of the charge for lease transfer in cases of hardship but this amendment has all those other things caught up in it that I do not agree with. So I cannot support the amendment, but I think the government has heard loud and clear that if we hear of the charge for lease transfer being applied in cases of hardship, then we would look on that disfavourably and may even reconsider this part of the Land Planning and Environment Act in the future.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (12.33): Mr Speaker, I think there are a couple of things that need to be clarified. First of all, if Mrs Dunne is so strongly concerned about the issue of a fee being levied, she should be aware that it is normal for such fees to be made by disallowable instrument. So there is a check on fees that may be instigated in the future. It is not as though there is open slather for the government to impose a fee without any sort of review, oversight or potential for it to be disallowed in this place. So I think we can put that to bed.

The other issue of concern, which Ms Dundas has appropriately raised, is the issue of sub-clause (b) of Mrs Dunne’s amendment, which appears to provide an opportunity for anyone to transfer a lease, with the authority’s consent, provided the person or entity has not, within the two years from the date of the transfer application, sought to transfer a lease. So basically what this amendment attempts to put into the act is an amendment that says, “Well you can do it once every two years; you can speculate in land once every two years.”

The relaxation of what the government is proposing by this amendment is, in the government’s view, unwarranted and does really undermine the intent of the government’s bill. The amendment potentially allows everybody to speculate in land at least once. Potentially it could lead to practices whereby undeveloped lease land was transferred once every two years, again, contributing to an increase in the cost of

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