Page 2183 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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MR SMYTH: The smug answer from the would-be Treasurer is “operator error”. You are the operator, sport. You are the guy that is going to have to operate this come 1 July. I defy you to stand up and tell me what this section means and what the explanation means. The explanation goes on to say:
New s276B points to the relevant provisions—
I cannot see too many provisions—
and instruments that set out how the LVC amount for these chargeable variations is to be worked out.
Mr Speaker, we are being asked to pass something that does not make sense. Law is meant to be simpler. The whole new format of principles in law with schedules and then determinations and schedules underneath is defined by this. If ever there was legislation drafted to make it difficult to understand, let alone comply with, this legislation is it. I ask both the Treasurer and the would-be Treasurer to stand up and explain section 276B(1) when they get their turn to talk. I will be very surprised if they can.
And we have got the scrutiny report criticism as well as all the problems outlined above through having an EM that is longer than the act. The scrutiny committee raised even more problems—for instance, in one area, the right to property and compensation for loss. Its report said:
The reference here to “residential property” is to such property considered in the aggregate. Some individual owners of residential leases will of course suffer a loss under this scheme when compared to earlier schemes. Moreover, an owner will pay the same LVC as a neighbour would pay for an identical site notwithstanding that the value of the former property is less than the neighbour; for example where the former lease is affected by the operation of the Tree Protection Act 2005, or the Heritage Protection Act 2004. These examples are mentioned because they illustrate that the value of a lease may, subsequent to its purchase by the lease-holder seeking to vary the lease, be adversely affected by legislative change.
That is on page 5. I ask the Treasurer again, when she closes this debate, to explain how that will not happen—or if indeed that was what the intent of the law was.
I go to the wide nature of the matters that may be prescribed by regulation. This goes to page 6 of the report, which says:
A number of significant topics may or must be prescribed by regulation. The Committee notes the powers:
. to prescribe a variation as a chargeable variation (proposed section 276)—
which I have just been speaking to—
. to determine a lease variation charge (proposed subsection 276D(1));
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