Page 5073 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
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My motion calls for the government to explore options to minimise the dominance of land ownership and retail interests in planning, land sales or other decisions, including through discussions with the ACCC. I realise this is a difficult task. However, it is key to ensuring that the government is in control of our city centres, not the developers.
I am concerned that there could be serious competition issues when a single landlord controls such a large holding of the available space in a given shopping precinct, such as is the case within the city, within Civic. This not only restricts options and can create unfair market power for landlords when retailers are negotiating rents but, once inside a shopping centre, there are issues for retailers in terms of lack of competition for security services, waste and recycling management and other service providers, as these are generally centrally controlled. Discussions with the ACCC could explore how the QIC domination of Civic compares to mall domination and one-landlord domination in other cities in Australia, and what kinds of measures it is appropriate for governments to take in order to limit individual companies’ dominance.
The current process for small business impact assessment for large commercial developments does not seem to be appropriate, especially given that the proponents appoint the assessment consultant. The Greens have heard of a number of proposals to improve on this process, largely which incorporate the impact assessment being undertaken by an independent consultant, which is appointed by ACTPLA and paid for by the proponent. This would generally save money for all parties.
In the Giralang supermarket case, the proponent commissioned a consultant to undertake an economic impact assessment as required by ACTPLA. When the case was appealed in ACAT, the government commissioned its own economic impact assessment, as well as needing to pay fees for the company to give legal advice to back it up. This case was never actually heard in ACAT.
In terms of the general process of small business impact assessment, third party appeals are not an option for the city and town centres, but the principle remains that it would be better for an independent consultant to be appointed from a panel so the government can trust those figures rather than paying for its own additional independent advice.
I noticed in the newspaper today that the Council of Small Business of Australia did, in fact, have similar concerns about the QIC small business impact statement, about it being more of a promotional document for QIC and the mall rather than an independent assessment. The problem of the statements being produced by a company of the proponent’s choice and not by the government is problematic in itself.
Although the government say they verify the data within the statements, it is hard to believe they would be able to really do this, given that they presumably have not been able to access the original data for commercial-in-confidence reasons. Certainly, in the spirit of open government, there is no way that the public or other businesses will have been able to access this data. It would be preferable if the government was able to have access to the consultant’s source data, if possible.
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