Page 2477 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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tax relief. What is going on with that territory funding?” We keep hearing members saying that he wants to spend $1 million on Northbourne Avenue with his folly—Stanhope’s folly—up there, the monument arch, but there is no taxation relief. I am intrigued that there has been some retreat, but it certainly runs contrary to the press release that was put out with the accounts which I was delighted to seize upon.
In estimates committee hearings on 21 June the minister drew attention to the government’s increase in the minimum allowable energy standard for new commercial buildings. He stated:
The ACT has lifted the minimum energy efficiency standards of new homes, introducing minimum requirements for energy efficiency in new commercial buildings and consulted on a policy that would make it mandatory for new homes to achieve a 40 per cent reduction in water use compared to 2003 levels.
The government has to recognise that, when it imposes additional requirements on building developers, it increases the cost of housing. No doubt the minister will argue that this minimum energy standard will allow building occupants to save on their energy costs, that this will save them money in the long term and he will save the planet. But if this is the case, then building owners and occupants are perfectly able to make this decision themselves if it is so economically sound and to weigh the relevant costs up in their purchasing decisions.
I have a few other comments I would like make on that. There have been some changes in the role of minister. I will be quite frank here and share a secret with the Assembly: a number of people in the property sector said, “You have got a bit of a bigger challenge now that Jon Stanhope has tossed Simon Corbell out of the job because he really was impossible to work with.” I was a bit shocked when I heard that. I said to my colleagues, “We are going to have a bit of a challenge here now that they have fixed one of the biggest problems in the territory government by putting Mr Barr into the job.” But last week my apprehension was allayed because we saw this planning legislation brought in—this shambolic exercise that was inherited by the current minister. He ended up having to bring in, I think, 160 amendments into this place which told me that things were a long way from being fixed. I will certainly watch with interest to see how the new minister goes in cleaning up the problems that were not only identified clearly by the Chief Minister but also observed by the people who do business with him: the property developers of Canberra who certainly had some interim relief with the change.
There are other interesting areas in the budget papers, particularly the minimum requirement of 5,000 blocks of land able to be released at any one time for fluctuations in the market. It will be intriguing. Maybe the minister can tell us where these 5,000 blocks are, when they will be ready for market—whether the minister’s idea of “ready for market” is that they are available but it will be 18 months before you can do anything with them—how well-prepared they will be and where they will be located.
There is quite a deal of interest in these wonderful undertakings. It will certainly be interesting to see what their impact is on the property market. Whilst I am conscious that housing affordability has been identified as an issue, I do not think I have known
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