Page 2654 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 1994
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I emphasise also, Madam Speaker, that we must be extremely careful to ensure that through endeavouring to protect the historically disadvantaged small businesses - retail and commercial tenants - in the ACT we do not make Canberra an unattractive place in which to invest. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that this legislation comes forward to the Assembly at a time when figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that private investment in the ACT is falling. Those recently released figures indicate that, although private investment in Australia generally has risen by of the order of 6 per cent, private investment in the ACT over the same period has declined by of the order of 8 per cent. We are obviously all aware that the market for that kind of investment is sensitive and that the ACT already suffers some perceived disabilities which may make it, in the eyes of some people, an unattractive place in which to invest. We should not exacerbate that by making it more difficult to extract those legitimate profits I referred to before. If we can preserve that environment and offer this protection, then clearly we are providing for winners on all sides.
Madam Speaker, I want to conclude by saying that there will clearly be a temptation in this exercise, at least in the negotiations between the real parties to this new arrangement, to try to raise the stakes; and it may well be that some landlords decide that they are in a position to jump the gun and to pre-empt the commencement of this legislation by forcing onerous terms on their tenants. I do not believe that that is a widespread danger at this stage. I clearly indicate that my party supports the concept that this legislation wants to see the position of a tenant more equitably dealt with by the law of the Territory than it has been to date. My party believes strongly in defending that position. If landlords engage in behaviour of that kind, leading up to the putting into practice of this legislation, then it would be reasonable to expect that the Assembly would have to take a stronger line on some of the issues on which there has been dispute between those parties. I hope, Madam Speaker, that that is not necessary because the parties realise that a cooperative environment is the best way of achieving both fairness in the marketplace and an environment in which investment - private investment, particularly - in the ACT remains an attractive option.
Madam Speaker, I commend this legislation, and I trust that it will usher in a new period in which all of us receive fewer complaints, of the kind that I am sure are familiar to us, about the sorts of things that happen in small shopping centres and elsewhere, and that we will see the ACT become a place where these sorts of problems are indeed few and far between.
MR MOORE (5.36): Madam Speaker, in rising to speak on this Bill following Gary Humphries's balanced approach, let me say that I understand the difficulty the Liberals have had in balancing those who might vote for them against those who might make big donations to their party. It has indeed been a difficult exercise. Apart from that, Madam Speaker, I think the issues that Mr Humphries raised are indeed sensible issues. There are just one or two that I may talk about a little later.
Madam Speaker, the ACT has been anticipating this legislation since 1972. In introducing my Commercial Tenancies Bill in 1993 and raising this matter on a number of previous occasions, I have drawn attention to - and I quoted from the House of Assembly Hansard - the promise made and later repeated by Ros Kelly. The legislation that is before us is quite different from that which I proposed, although it seeks to achieve the
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