Page 1783 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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went through the amendments. We discussed them at length, worked out which ones we could support and which ones we would not support.
The opposition and the crossbench put forward proposals. Some of those were taken on as government amendments. We went through and found inconsistencies, and the staff of the Clerk’s office were extraordinarily helpful in making useful suggestions about how to get through problems. That, I understand, has not happened with this bill and as a result we are going to have a large number of contested amendments. There were contested amendments to the Planning and Land Bill. There were things that we just could not agree on, but we knew what they were beforehand. Anything else had been settled well in advance and the passage went smoothly. I am concerned that this will not happen on this occasion, but again I pay tribute to the people who have got us to this much needed place at last.
There are issues with this bill which have been generally touched on by Mr Seselja, some of which I will reinforce. I applaud Mr Seselja for his determination and I will be supporting his amendments to abolish the land development agency. It was certainly the view of the Liberal Party back when the Planning and Land Bill was passed in 2002 that the land development agency would be a disaster. We said that it was unnecessary and unneeded, and everything that we said has come true.
I will give some examples. The apparent breakdown in communication over the highly controversial EpiCentre auction and disposal of land shows that there are not the checks and balances necessary between the LDA and ACTPLA. There has been a failure to get land out at a time when the community is crying out for land. There is a housing shortfall, as a result, perhaps, of inefficiencies or the minister, perhaps, wanting to turn off the tap and drive up the price of land. The net result has been a housing affordability crisis in this place engineered effectively by the land development agency.
I will give just one example, and that is the first block of land developed by the land development agency, Yerrabi stage 2. It was developed in 2003. To this day there are still vacant blocks in that place. This is a failure of the land development process. Quite early in the piece, when all the civil works had gone in and the kerbing and guttering was there and the for sale signs were up and for months there were no houses developed on this place, a private developer said to me, “Vicki, the problem with this is that there is no risk for these people and as a result of this they can afford to let this go on.”
A private developer could not afford to have land vacant for so long unsold and undeveloped. They have holding costs; they would be losing money. But they were losing ACT taxpayers’ money. There are still blocks of land in Yerrabi stage 2 which are not developed, and that would be unheard of in a private development simply because the private developer could not afford to have land sitting around unsold for a long time. As a result of that, the price of that land went up and up and up. Before the 2001 election the average price of a block of land in Gungahlin was $64,000. Yerrabi stage 2 sold in the upper nineties and now we see blocks of land going for $200,000 and $300,000 in Gungahlin, all as a result of the work of the land development agency. Congratulations, ministers!
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