Page 1794 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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This puts into law what has been government policy since December 2005. The government has worked closely with the community and industry in developing these proposals. Officials from ACTPLA have had more than 20 meetings over two years with industry and community groups to address some of the concerns that have been raised. I welcome Mr Seselja’s acknowledgement that he believes the government amendments are an improvement. It was important that we went through that process to arrive at the situation we have now.
The key things here are that by providing people with a single source, the Land Titles Office, for finding out about their rights to use land, by strengthening protections for authorised uses on both new and existing leases, guaranteeing these in the Planning and Development Bill, by ensuring that existing rights are not lost when a development application to commence another use is refused for planning and development assessment reasons, by ensuring that rights to use land do not lapse simply because there is a break in the use of the land, use is non-continuous or that the lease is renewed, and by providing express protection in the rare cases where a change to the territory plan prohibits a use authorised in a lease where the owner may still exercise those use rights but may in some cases need to seek a development approval to do so, the government considers that these reforms achieve that fair balance. They protect the community’s interests in having an efficient and effective planning system, but they also protect the rights of individuals to develop their properties. So the government will not be supporting Mr Seselja’s amendments, but I will be putting forward amendments of my own shortly.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (8.22): This is obviously where the government and the opposition part company. Sadly it is at the very beginning of the legislation and over such a fundamental point. Having listened to the minister, I suspect that the anecdote that I relayed before dinner is correct—the people who were devising this new legislation system have at their heart a complete lack of understanding of the leasehold system and a desire to do away with it.
Mr Stanhope: Do you mean ACTPLA?
MRS DUNNE: Yes, I do mean ACTPLA.
Mr Stanhope: What? They completely misunderstand the leasehold system?
MRS DUNNE: Who do misunderstand the purpose of the leasehold system and have a desire to do away with it. What this minister has just described is potentially the end of the leasehold system. I was joking upstairs with a couple of people about what has happened. You had the original driver of this legislation, Minister Corbell, when he was planning minister. He wanted to have controls over everything. Suddenly the eco-rat has come in but he does not understand enough about his new portfolio to understand the real implications of what he is doing here today and does not have the capacity to walk away from what is an entirely foolish notion.
You are going to end up with two classes of leases to some extent. If you exercised as much of your lease rights as possible, you will be fine, but if you have a lease with a lot of possible uses on it—and a new lease, in particular—that lease will be devalued
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