Page 2172 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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(1) A provision of this Act must be applied to an Act or statutory
instrument, in accordance with the terms of the provision, except so
far as it is displaced.
It is manifestly recognised in the Legislation Act that there will be times when the default position is not appropriate, and it is entirely appropriate that we debate whether or not this bill is one such occasion.
I would also quickly draw the Treasurer’s attention to section 330 of the Planning and Development Act, which is, of course, the very act that we are amending. Subsection (2) provides:
(2) Subject to any disallowance under the Legislation Act, chapter 7, the plan of management commences—
(a) on the day after the 6th sitting day after the day the plan is presented to the Legislative Assembly under that chapter; or
(b) if the plan provides for a later date or time of commencement—on the later date or time.
Clearly, the far-reaching implication of this, as the minister asserts in her response to the scrutiny report, simply does not exist.
As the scrutiny committee observed, we are effectively levying a tax, and there is a significant concern and it should be respected that parliaments levy taxes. Proposed section 279 is probably the most offensive provision in this regard as it gives an almost unfettered power to increase a tax with no provisions governing its use. Whilst we recognise that it already exists in the Planning and Development Act, that is, of course, no reason not to improve it. The Greens will be moving an amendment to displace the provisions of the Legislation Act and provide that the disallowance provision must expire before any regulation commences.
On the broader question about the impact of the scheme, the proof will, of course, be in the pudding and, as the independent analysis observes, we cannot tell exactly what the implications of the charge will be. It is simply wrong and quite unreasonable to say that any one party will pay the cost of the charge. I would have thought anyone would instinctively suspect that it would be distributed. The portions, of course, remain to be seen across all three participants—that is, the owner, developer and new purchaser. This theory was confirmed by the independent reports.
In any case, I am confident that the proposal provides sufficient flexibility to respond to changes in the market and will not have the negative effects that the opposition has been claiming.
The point should be made that we do have a relatively unique land tenure scheme in the ACT and we are trying something that does not exist in other Australian jurisdictions. As I understand it, it is relatively unique across the world. There will be issues that need to be resolved and creases to iron out. I think we should all come to it with an open mind and just accept that changes will be required at some point in time.
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