Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2410 ..

Mr Humphries: That was in about 1911 or something, was it not?

MR BERRY: Yes. Nevertheless, it is still the relevant law. I might have to come back to that. Mr Speaker, the other legislation which I should refer to is the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act. I refer to that because that was the legislation that was specifically referred to in Mrs Carnell's letter to Mr Smith. She requested of Mr Smith that he alter this particular legislation so that the Territory could legislate. That was, of course, in the wake of Mr Humphries's creation of the impression that this Government would do nothing. "We will do nothing to upset the system", he said. That was the impression that was created here. Mrs Carnell goes off then and writes a letter to Mr Warwick Smith and requests him to change the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act.

I think that is very clearly this Government at work. The impression was created, by the Minister representing this Government in relation to planning and land management matters, that nothing was going to be done. One assumes that Mrs Carnell asked Mr Humphries whether he agreed. Mr Humphries might get up and say, "She did it of her own accord". That would create an interesting position for us to deal with. But they together - if I may use the word - conspired to ensure that this happened and that changes to the arrangements in the ACT could be then facilitated by the Commonwealth. They requested the Commonwealth to facilitate an arrangement whereby changes could be made to the way leases are let in the ACT so that 999-year leases could be achieved.

Mr Speaker, on 2CN Mr Humphries made it very clear when he said this:

We have had discussions with the Federal Government and I'm hopeful that the legislative steps at the federal level will be taken before the end of the year to allow us to create, to issue, or rather to automatically convert all the existing leases in the ACT that are of that kind into 999-year leases.

He did not say, "We have had discussions with the Federal Government and we said to them, `We have told our colleagues in the Assembly not to do this. Federal Minister, please, do not let us down. We have told our colleagues in the Assembly that we will not do this. If you do this you will be letting us down and you will be letting our Assembly down. We have not requested it' ". No, that is not what Mr Humphries said. He said:

We have had discussions with the Federal Government and I'm hopeful -

that to me is an indication that he has encouraged the Federal Government -

that the legislative steps at the federal level will be taken before the end of the year to allow us to create, to issue, or rather to automatically convert all the existing leases in the ACT that are of that kind into 999-year leases.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .