Page 3068 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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This 14-day time period is the same as the time period for notice about compensation to be given to an interest holder following a new compulsory acquisition under section 38. The proposed notice will have similar content to the notice that goes to persons subject to a new acquisition post the commencement of the bill—that is, it will include a copy of the acquisition declaration, compensation form, notice about the three-year time limit and that the three-year period runs from the date of the notice.
To finish, I would like to thank the legislative scrutiny committee for their careful consideration of this bill and for their comments, which ensure that this bill does what it needs to do without compromising the rights of interest holders and without compromising procedural fairness in an area where it is an imperative that things be done on just terms. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.11): The Greens will also be supporting this bill and the government amendments. I will not go through all the issues because they have been adequately canvassed by previous speakers. The current system does seem a bit strange, I must admit, whereby there is basically no time limit for this and it just drags on and on. I am sure the people who wrote the bill originally never envisaged that this could happen. There is no reason for things to drag on forever. Three years does seem to be a reasonable amount of time to make a claim for compensation. So the bill does seem like a sensible fix to the system.
As Ms Lawder and Ms Orr have said, it is quite reasonable that anyone affected should be notified that the rules have been changed. It may not have been necessary to have been part of the legislation, because clearly it is a transitional arrangement which I understand impacts only one interest holder; nonetheless, it is a sensible change and the Greens will be supporting the bill and the amendments.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Minister for Planning and Land Management and Minister for Urban Renewal) (11.12), in reply: I thank members for their input into this bill. The bill, as we have heard, makes a number of limited amendments to the Lands Acquisition Act. The purpose of the bill is to introduce another way to facilitate negotiations on the payment of compensation for the compulsory acquisition of land under the act.
From the outset I would like to emphasise that the proposed amendments do not change the basic structure of the act, including the right to receive compensation and the calculation of compensation amounts payable. In particular, the bill makes no changes to the process for the acquisition of land, the factors to be considered in determining a compensation amount or the process for negotiation and review of compensation amounts payable following an initial claim or offer. These procedures remain exactly the same as they are now under the Lands Acquisition Act.
At this point, I confirm that the government is putting forward two minor amendments to the bill in response to comments from the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety, in its legislative scrutiny role, and I will refer to these in more detail shortly.
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