Page 243 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2016
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purchase their block, rather than continue to rent, they are able to pay it out at unimproved value rather than at market value.
The problem that this poses for the government is that the government is paying home owners market value for their block at the time of the buyback. So allowing people to then purchase the block back from the government at unimproved value does present the prospect of a price differential that presents the prospect of a windfall gain. It is something the government just cannot do. Indeed, it would be justly criticised by others in the community if it set up a scheme that provided a few with this situation.
On that basis I will not be supporting the disallowance motion. I think that a lot of care and thought have gone into trying to come up with a scheme that is as fair as possible. There has been a lot of effort to make the land rent scheme available to people uniquely in this situation and to give people options. To simply disallow this today and leave a blank space, to remove the capability for people to access the land rent scheme, I think is not the appropriate thing to do.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (12.23), by leave: The opposition is extremely disappointed by those opposite, including Mr Rattenbury. This should be disallowed. If nothing else, it should be discussed in the right way. Mr Rattenbury need only look at notice No 3 on the notice paper, where it says:
Disallowable Instrument will be deemed to have been disallowed unless disposed of within 4 sitting days, including today.
Mr Rattenbury’s claim that it was lodged on 12 November is wrong. 12 November was not even a sitting day. It was lodged on 19 November. There are four sitting days including today. This should be on next Thursday’s agenda. Indeed I believe it was discussed at admin and procedure on Tuesday that there are two notices here. One will expire before next Thursday and one will expire on Thursday. It is for that reason that my notice No 2 was on today’s daily program and my notice No 3 was intended to be on next Thursday’s daily program.
Who should know this? Ms Burch should know this, because she was there. She did not even have the courtesy to let Mr Smyth or the opposition know that this was coming on. It is disrespectful. Of course, we can be disappointed, but the people who are really disappointed are the Mr Fluffy home owners of Canberra, who have been let down by this process. They have been let down by a government that has pulled the rug out from underneath them. They have been let down by a government that has rejected an opportunity for them to come in and hear this debate.
If Mr Rattenbury was in the chamber at the time, he would have heard me say that there were people who were keen to come in and listen to this debate, but they have been written out of the equation. It is wrong; it is absolutely wrong. Mr Rattenbury’s endorsement of Ms Burch’s motion shows how complicit Labor and the Greens are in steamrolling through their agenda, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the community they allegedly represent. And Mr Smyth also informs me that Mr Rattenbury was in admin and procedures when this was discussed, which adds to the concern about this.
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