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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 485 ..

Mr Berry: Perhaps, Mr Speaker, you could have Mr Kaine ask the question again so that we can hear it clearly.

Mr Kaine: On that point of order, Mr Speaker: I think the Minister understands the question very well, even if Mr Berry does not.

MR SPEAKER: I am sure that if he does not, Mr Kaine, he will ask you to clarify it.

MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, Mr Speaker. I note that this does not anticipate any matter on the notice paper because it is on the daily program, not the notice paper. Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Kaine for the question. I am sorry that he spoilt Mr Wood's fun by asking it. The question about how the Government views the leasehold system is a very good question and one which the Government will be grappling with in the coming few months as we develop our response to the Stein/Stain/Steen inquiry.

Ms Follett: Stein.

MR HUMPHRIES: I believe that Justice Stein actually wanted it pronounced Steen. Ms Follett obviously knows Justice Stein intimately and knows better than I do. I have heard her former deputy describe it as the Stain report, so I am not really sure what pronunciation is correct.

Mr Speaker, much has been said about this report which has excited great interest in the community. It suggested, for one thing, that there should not be a move towards a freehold system of land tenure in the ACT, and that a number of elements, not necessarily all of them, of the present leasehold system should be retained. My party went to the last election with a set of promises which it takes quite seriously. One of those promises was that the Government would, for example, engineer some changes to the leasehold system. The leasehold system, it needs to be acknowledged, has changed enormously in the last 25 or so years. Ever since the Gorton Government decided, effectively, to cease the practice of collecting premiums or land rent for ACT leasehold, the system has been in a state of continuous change. This report, I think, only puts on the table another series of proposed changes or possible changes that should be considered.

My view, Mr Speaker, is that I and my colleagues on this side of the chamber have a policy which was delivered to us by our party, a democratically formed policy which we are all bound to under the rules of the Liberal Party. My party, in government, commissioned a quite extensive and expensive report on the leasehold system. That report has been much criticised from all quarters in the ACT; it also has been supported in many quarters of the ACT. My view is that my party will need to consider, in a formal sense, through its policy-making process, whether it should change in any way its present policy on the leasehold system, but that, for the time being, my colleagues and I are bound by the printed policy for the 1995 ACT election campaign.

Mr Speaker, one thing that I do think is appropriate is that whatever policy we adopt in this place should be determined for the ACT by the ACT Legislative Assembly, not by somebody else such as the Commonwealth Parliament. I welcome the proposal made in recent days to give the ACT Assembly the power to determine that question.

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