Page 3044 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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I will now turn to some of the key elements of the bill. As I have suggested, the bill is intended to make it easier to identify whether a particular lease is concessional. With the bill in place, one can simply look at a lease in the register of land titles and tell immediately whether it is concessional or at risk of being concessional.
In order to achieve this, the bill groups all leases into the following three categories: firstly, concessional leases, that is, leases deemed under the bill to be concessional. A concessional lease cannot be a market value lease. This is an existing concept which the bill modifies. The new definition of concessional leases is in the new section 235A, clause 4.
The second is market value leases. A market value lease cannot be concessional and is not subject to the restrictions that apply to concessional leases. This is an existing concept modified in this bill. The new definition of market value leases is in the new section 235B, clause 4. The new definition relies on the list of lease types in part 5.2 of the new schedule 5 inserted by clause 37. This list is based on the already existing list of leases exempted from the definition of concessional leases in section 99 of the planning and development regulation. This list has been clarified and augmented to make the list as comprehensive and as clear as possible. This list of market value leases, in combination with the new definition of possibly concessional leases, should ensure that the category of concessional leases only applies to leases clearly intended to be so.
Thirdly, there will be leases classified as possibly concessional, that is, leases deemed neither concessional nor market value leases. The new category “possibly concessional” includes leases that might or might not be concessional. This category is intended to serve as a flag or warning that the lease might prove to be concessional if further research shows that the lease was in fact granted for less than market value and is therefore a concessional lease. The new definition of possibly concessional leases is in the new section 235C, clause 4. The new definition relies on the list of possibly concessional lease types in part 5.3 of the new schedule 5 inserted by clause 37.
I note that the bill includes the power to expand on this list of possibly concessional leases by regulation. This feature is in item 12 of part 5.3 of the new schedule 5. This provision is limited. It will be available for a transitional period only. This provision will enable the government to supplement this schedule in light of operational experience should this prove necessary. The establishment of these three categories is one key element of the bill. The other key element is the relationship between them. The bill establishes a number of key principles designed to make it easier to tell from looking at a lease whether it is concessional or at risk of being concessional.
The key principles are as follows: a lease can be a concessional lease if it is explicitly identified as such. If the lease is not explicitly identified, it can only be a concessional lease if it is also a possibly concessional lease. A lease can only be a possibly concessional lease if it is of a type listed in the list of possibly concessional leases in part 5.3 of the new schedule 5 and meets other requirements set out in the definition in section 235C. In other words, if the lease is not stamped concessional and is not of the type listed in part 5.3 of schedule 5, then the lease is in all cases deemed to be not
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