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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (14 February) . . Page.. 111 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
From a visual inspection of the graphs of the two sets of data, it is difficult to see a relationship between the two, other than possible seasonal effects. These effects are of course well known in the property industry and are associated with the impact of the late December-early January reduction in activity.
A statistical analysis based on the correlation between the two series of data displayed in Figure 2 confirmed that there is no significant relationship between the two. In the case of the ABS buildings approval data, a regression analysis indicated a significant increasing long term trend through time. This may be seen from a visual inspection of the appropriate graph ...
Based on an analysis for this ... set of data, in the case of non-residential leases ... there is no significant relationship between the CUC and the value of building approvals. Because of the limited nature of the data bases, however, and a lack of availability of other relevant data bases, any conclusions drawn from these two sets of data should recognize their limitations.
So there is no proof at all. Nicholls quotes Stein:
We are not aware of any empirical evidence that development in the ACT has been inhibited by reason of the collection of whole or part of the increase in value arising from development rights. There is, however, anecdotal evidence and assertions made in many business and development submissions ...
We have always had the assertions, but there is no data to support them. We have regularly explained in this Assembly that the Greens' policy is that the change of use charge should be 100 per cent of the change in value of the land. Anything less is a subsidy to developers, and we do not believe we should be giving away this revenue stream when there is no clear public benefit. If the government wishes to promote particular types of development, then it should do so in a direct and transparent manner that can be reviewed by the Assembly rather than just rely on the blunt mechanism of a reduced change of use charge on all lease purpose changes.
During the last debate on the change of use charge, when the government wanted to continue the rate at 75 per cent, Mr Corbell flagged that he would bring on a bill to set the rate at 100 per cent but to allow for remissions in certain cases. I said at the time that this looked like a reasonable approach, and the Greens are prepared to support the government giving incentives for developments which have clear public benefits but which may not otherwise occur because of limitations in the private sector market-for example, to encourage development in parts of the city that are in need of particular facilities or to encourage ecologically sound buildings. Mr Kaine, in his presentation, said that he was concerned that that would not occur if the change of use charge was 100 per cent. Clearly, the possibility of remissions for social benefit is there, particularly with the amendments I am adding to Mr Corbell's bill.
Most of Mr Smyth's speech accused Mr Corbell of having been slack in producing a refinement of the proposal for remissions. My amendments do that. Mr Smyth did not talk about them. Hopefully, he is aware of them now. I recall the government saying at one point that they themselves were interested in developing some criteria to guide these sorts of decisions, so I think it was a bit hollow for Mr Smyth to spend so much of his presentation on that aspect. However, I guess it is an election year.
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