Page 2166 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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Mr Smyth: And we have not seen them.
MR SESELJA: We have not seen the regulations. And we are told today by the Chief Minister that some of the framework in terms of the process, they hope, will be completed at the end of this year. So we have had a terrible process, which has led to a terrible piece of legislation.
Let us have a look at some of the other areas of concern. One is off-site works, which was removed after consultation. One of the areas on which we have received the most consistent feedback is that off-site works that are required by the government should have some ability to be offset against the new tax. And I think that that is reasonable. I think that that has been the way that it has been to date. If it is convenient, if it works when developments for various off-site works are occurring, that should be taken into account and there should be some certainty that those off-site works will be offset against any taxes that are left, particularly in this case the change of use. The consultation draft included this recognition, at least as far as the public benefit was concerned.
Of course, after receiving all these representations, after going through this process about off-site works, what did the government do? They removed off-site works from the legislation.
Then we see the issue of commercial improvements. Another area is the real-world issue of commercial improvements. In the consultation draft, the V1 and V2 formulation for commercial projects did not include commercial improvements. Again, industry groups and professionals have said that existing commercial improvements form part of the consideration for the final formulation.
Let us have a think about that and let us use a real-world example. What the government is saying with this legislation is that if someone has a commercial office which is worth several million dollars and they are seeking to redevelop that into housing, in many cases that is going to be a good policy outcome for the community. We have an oversupply of office. We do not, in my opinion, have anywhere near enough housing in the city in particular. Encouraging that kind of development not only helps us deal with our very high office vacancies, it actually leads to better outcomes and having more people live in the city, which I think is a good outcome. Not everyone in the community might think that but we, the Canberra Liberals, believe seeing more people live in the city is a good thing for our city, a good thing for the growth of our city.
This legislation pretends that that asset does not exist. It pretends that that land has been cleared. It pretends that, in levying the change of use charge, that commercial office is irrelevant. So the V1 and V2 are not V1 and V2, because the value of the building that they have, which has the ability to earn income, is disregarded. So they are saying: “No. Go ahead and develop. We want you to. But we are not going to actually consider that you actually have an asset now, apart from the dirt. You have dirt. The building, we are going to ignore.”
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