Page 2178 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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For instance, if you take two blocks side by side in the one suburb, it may seem reasonable that both of them should have the lease variation charge determined by a reference to the code or the matrix. But this code does not take into account the impact on those blocks of other pieces of legislation. For instance, a block may have a tree on it which is subject to the Tree Protection Act, which means that, if you wanted to redevelop the block, you could not cut down the tree. That would constrain the development on the block compared to the development on a block next door, but both blocks would be charged the lease variation fee at the same rate.
Similarly, if one block were the subject of the Heritage Act, you might have to maintain the setback on that block or the facade on that block or maintain a hedge on that block, and you would be constrained in the way that you could redevelop that block for residential purposes. But because it was in a particular suburb, you would have to pay the same fee as a block that was not in the same way affected by the heritage legislation.
The minister has been asked to address these issues by the committee. I noticed that the minister wrote to the committee in response to this but basically dismissed without much commentary the points raised by the scrutiny of bills committee. But these questions remain unanswered. Why, if a block of land is not the same as the one next door because it is constrained by legislation or by legislative fiat, should the owners pay the same fee? It means that some people will be advantaged and other people will be disadvantaged under this legislation which, on the surface of it, appears to treat all landowners the same. That is clearly not the case, as has been demonstrated by the scrutiny of bills committee.
More important from the point of view of this legislature is the issue raised by the scrutiny of bills committee regarding the wide nature of matters that are prescribed by regulation in relation to this piece of legislation. Mr Seselja in the debate so far and in comments on other matters earlier today and Mr Smyth also have drawn the Assembly’s attention to the fact that the guts of the legislation is not in this bill but will appear later—as late as December this year—in the form of determinations and regulated matters.
These are significantly important, because what we are proposing to do today is impose a tax upon the people of the ACT, and this legislature as it stands now has almost no control over the level of that tax. The most important issue as far as I am concerned of those raised by the scrutiny of bills committee is the issue of the minister delegating to regulation the power to fix the rate of a tax.
I know the government calls this a lease variation charge. You may call it a charge, but in no way is this a charge in the conventional sense. A charge can reasonably be set by regulation. But this is clearly a tax. Although the government calls it a lease variation charge, even in its explanatory statements, it does call this a tax. The scrutiny of bills committee—
Mr Smyth: My apologies, Mr Speaker?
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Smyth?
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