Page 301 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 December 2004
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The three lessees in question, Mr Coonan, Mr Tully and Mr Tanner, have not applied for further rural leases. However, the government and the ACT planning authority entered into good faith discussions with them in 2003; those are the discussions that I have just outlined in my comments. Detailed work on lessee owned improvements needed to be undertaken by the valuers with respect to each property. This included a component for timber treatment, as it is known under the lease. This is essentially recognition of the cost of clearing the land of trees. The lease, given the age of the trees, recognises this as an improvement to the property. In addition, work needed to be undertaken with respect to comparative property values, both in the ACT and New South Wales, and this work included both recent and historic property sales.
The leases indicate that the lessees are entitled to compensation for improvements they make to their property should the lease be surrendered or acquired by the territory. Mrs Dunne seems to think that we should offer compensation on the basis of the potential value of the land if it is subsequently changed to permit residential development, and she has made public comments in the media that support that position. She says that the government is going to make a motser—I think that was her language—out of selling this land for residential development.
That comment ignores two important facts. First of all, the government has to recoup the infrastructure costs for developing these areas through land sales, and infrastructure costs are considerable in developing any new greenfields area. Secondly, and more importantly, that is not the way the lease works. The lease does not have a value for residential development, because the lease does not permit residential development. The lease permits use for agricultural purposes. The lease was granted on that basis. The full rights to the lease were actually purchased by the commonwealth in the seventies as well. So these lessees were compensated in full for the value of their property when the commonwealth acquired these properties—
Mrs Dunne: The commonwealth never acquired these properties.
MR CORBELL: when the commonwealth paid out the value of these properties and established these properties on a different leasehold basis. So the lessees are being treated fairly. The lessees are being treated consistent with the approach the government would adopt if they initiated the process for surrender under the land act. I have not sought to deal with these lessees in any way different from the way I would deal with any other rural lessee in the territory.
The bottom line is that rural leases, ever since the federal capital territory was established, have been used as a land bank for potential future urban development. Planning studies undertaken by the territory have now recognised the Molonglo Valley as a potential area for future urban development. Given that that is the case, it is reasonable for the territory to say that long-term leases should not be permitted any longer in this location. The land, at some stage in the next five to 25 years, will be required for urban development. Why would the territory grant a long-term, 99-year lease in these circumstances? It would be negligent of the territory to do so and incur the costs associated with that. This is the approach the government is adopting. It is no different from the approach adopted for any other rural lessee in any other part of the territory where urban development is proposed.
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