Page 431 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 1993
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I do not agree, however, with the view that when government agrees to change the land use the owner should be forced to hand back the lease and receive compensation - I expect that the article places land and improvements together - so that the land can be put to auction with a new use. The initiative to change land use comes from the owner of the lease. The incentive to change and move with market forces has been encouraged without the high cost of payment of compensation as suggested in the article.
Since the abolition of land rent in 1971, the method of recouping the increased value has been through betterment. This has created incentive and good returns to the community in dollar and employment terms. We simply have to live with the system as amended in 1971. What is suggested in the article has a double high cost implication to government - high payments to owners for land and improvements and then the negative cost effect of selling at auction land with improvements very likely inappropriate to the proposed new conditions. To suggest that "people should stick to the original land use" denies flexibility and ignores the public processes in the new land Act, not to mention the negative effect on the original sale prices of land in the Territory.
Legislative Assembly - Telephone Numbers
MR STEVENSON: My question is addressed to you, Madam Speaker, and concerns the new White Pages released yesterday morning. Page 28 lists the details of the Legislative Assembly. It lists numbers for Rosemary Follett, Wayne Berry, Bill Wood and Terry Connolly, and a general number for members, 205 0172. If it is like the number in the past, it is a number that shuts down at about 4.30 or 5 o'clock and nobody is able - - -
Mr Berry: It certainly would not get you then - 3 o'clock in the morning and still in bed.
MADAM SPEAKER: Please continue, Mr Stevenson.
MR STEVENSON: Unbelievable. Make them witty or intelligent. Do something unusual. I apologise for that comment. I should not do that.
MADAM SPEAKER: Please continue, Mr Stevenson.
MR STEVENSON: It also lists your office. By and large, other Labor members are able to be contacted after hours. Names are listed, so a person can say, "Whom would I like to contact?". Four Labor members are listed but the other 13 members in the Assembly do not have their names listed. I think some serious concerns arise from this. It is important that Canberrans have an opportunity to contact their members by name, which the Canberra phone book used to allow them to do. Last year's telephone book did not allow that. Because of the election last year, it was not known who the members would be.
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