Page 2405 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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Betterment Tax on School Sites
MR JENSEN: Mr Acting Speaker, my question is directed to the Chief Minister. I refer the Chief Minister to a recent statement by the ALP Opposition spokesman on education that a Labor Party government would impose a 200 per cent betterment tax or levy on developers who purchase vacant school sites for commercial or non-community use. I note, of course, Mr Acting Speaker, that he has not indicated whether this decision applies to school sites closed by the previous Federal Labor administration. However, would the Chief Minister please comment on the possible effect such a tax would have on the ACT economy?
MR KAINE: Mr Acting Speaker, this was one of the wackier things that came out of the whacky weekend that we have just experienced, or that the members across the other side of the table seem to have experienced. Based on what has been reported in the media, Lord knows what happened in the other 97 per cent that did not get reported in the media. They must have had a really terrific time out there.
As I said, it was one of the wackier ideas because the proposal simply does not make sense. I would have thought that at least some of the members over there might have had a little more sense in approaching such a subject. It is simply unnecessary to impose such a tax because the Government will make sure that any sale of any school site for commercial purposes will be sold at a full market value return to the community - not with a betterment tax but with a full market value return.
The ALP proposal is impossible to implement and it is probably wrong in law anyway. It demonstrates just how out of touch the ALP has become since its members were bundled out of office, and obviously rightly so. In being bundled out of office it subsequently lost its only good performer in the Assembly. I exclude Mr Wood from that.
Mr Duby: I do not. He put the motion.
Mr Wood: It was my idea.
MR KAINE: I must say I am surprised, Mr Wood. It was interesting, Mr Acting Speaker, to read Mr Whalan's view on his former colleagues now, particularly the Leader of the Opposition.
The proposal to impose a 200 per cent betterment tax on any school site left vacant by decisions of the Alliance Government shows a lack of understanding of betterment as it has been used in the ACT leasehold system. Betterment applies in cases where an existing leaseholder obtains extra development rights to an existing site. The tax is applied to provide the community with some return for approving a new use for a site that a lessee already has. This is not the case with school sites. There are no existing leases. They are on Government property; they
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