Page 538 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
be executive documents and cabinet in confidence documents. I am happy to go back and look at what information we can provide around the package that we have announced, to assist members, but, just to be clear, that would be around the changes as agreed by cabinet, not documents that were produced to inform the discussions of cabinet around changes.
Mr Smyth: So the open government agenda does not exist?
MS GALLAGHER: They are working documents used to inform policy decisions by the cabinet, and those are not normally released. I do not intend to start that practice, and you can be an open government without—
Mr Smyth: That is what an open government agenda means.
MS GALLAGHER: No. You can be an open government; that does not mean that you start releasing all executive documents and working documents used to inform those cabinet discussions. That is what I will not be doing. I am happy to look at the information that we can provide to assist members with information about the very sensible package agreed to by the cabinet after careful consideration of all the issues that had been raised by the industry. And, as I said yesterday, after overlaying a public interest and a community benefit on those changes, we agreed to certain changes around the lease variation charge and commence and complete fees.
I support the previous speech by the Deputy Chief Minister. The government remains committed to having in place fees and charges which return benefit to the community for assets granted from them. That is what both of these charges do.
I would be interested in a response from the Liberal Party about whether they actually believe that the lease variation charge is a charge they would support. It goes to the heart of the community’s interest in our biggest asset, land, and the fact that, when land and development rights are granted, and those development rights bring with them not only risk to the developer but also benefits to the developer through the outcomes of that development, there should be some return to the community for that.
That is what this very legitimate charge is all about. We said it at the beginning. If anyone is responsible for the lease variation charge, it is me. It is the charge that I brought in when I was Treasurer—that I worked on through extensive reviews of the change of use charge. We always said at the time that it was a lever available to government to respond as economic conditions required. I remember saying that a number of times in this place: where we needed to change the levers, we would do so, and we would look to work with industry on them. This is a classic example of us doing exactly what we said we would do.
Amendment to Mr Smyth’s proposed amendment agreed to.
Mr Smyth’s amendment, as amended, to Mr Barr’s proposed amendment agreed to.
Mr Barr’s amendment, as amended, agreed to.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video