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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1243 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

I put forward this amendment Bill - it is a simple matter - in a genuine effort to get consultation to actually occur. We have heard many times from the Government about how open and consultative they are. If that is the case - and we have reason to suspect that it is not the case - and if that is to be seen as the case, then I believe that the Government ought to support this amendment. On many occasions, when there is such a vast array of appointments which must be made, it is difficult to bring them forward in a timely fashion - I am aware of that; I have been in government myself - but I think you have to try harder and you have to try to get the bureaucrats, the public servants involved, to adopt a far better process of scheduling of appointments so that they do not lapse and there is not less than 24 hours available to make the appointments. It is a matter of good housekeeping as much as anything. I commend the amendment Bill to the Assembly.

Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries) adjourned.

Debate resumed from 17 April 1996, on motion by Mr Moore:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (10.54): Mr Speaker, the Government has decided to not support this legislation. The legislation is put forward by Mr Moore in an attempt to deal with what he sees as a major problem with the continuing use by some leaseholders in the Territory of the device of unit titling as a means of providing for a variety of different options for the use of land. Those options range across a number of areas: Provision of accommodation for a relative or a person in the charge of the person occupying the land; a means of producing some rental income; a means of producing a commercial proposition for profit to provide for a person to reap some benefit from an area of land where they do not need the full area allocated in the lease.

In the context of the history of this issue of dual occupancy development in the ACT, the proposal certainly is apposite. Less than two years ago there was a very intense debate taking place in the ACT community about the extent to which dual occupancies in the Territory were springing up. Members in this place - particularly, the former Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning - were acutely aware of community concern about the number of such developments occurring. In response to that concern, the previous Government established the Lansdown inquiry to consider in what ways such development should be curtailed.

Mr Moore: It made this recommendation.

MR HUMPHRIES: And it made recommendations, indeed.

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