Page 4082 - Week 13 - Thursday, 6 December 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
truth? Did he not understand the question? I think not. I think he understood the question just fine.
The planning minister was and is still embarrassed by the answer. This was confirmed by the officials sitting with the Chief Minister at the annual report hearings when asked how many blocks were for sale as of that day. It was none—not even one. This was corrected by other officials who informed the committee that there were in fact a few blocks available. However, that has not stopped young Canberrans from being forced to sleep outside to try and secure their future.
The Assembly should note that recently a disallowable instrument was introduced to allow for over-the-counter land sales. Why was this necessary? When the question was asked by my office, the response was that until it was introduced it was actually against the law to sell land over the counter to the ACT community. Against the law to sell land over the counter! Doesn’t that send a message to the young families and participants in our economy? This government made it illegal to sell land over the counter. After six years of failure, they are scrambling to make up lost ground.
But just how quickly have they acted? Two examples demonstrate how slow the government has been to respond. I just mentioned the first—only now acting to allow over-the-counter sales. The second came with the second appropriation bill. The government appropriated $1.4 million for accelerated land release activities. “This initiative will deliver an accelerated program for the supply of residential land to the market over the next two financial years” is what they said. It has taken them until December 2007 to beef up ACTPLA’s resources to accelerate land release. What an admission of failure. We see it only now, well after the significant increases in demand that we have seen. Only now do we see them moving to appropriate extra money for accelerated land release. That appropriation is an admission of this government’s failure. It is an admission that they simply have not done enough to speed up land release to keep up with demand.
The government want us to believe that this issue is a serious priority for them. Clearly, the busway, the prison, the arboretum and the Grassby statue, to name a few, have all been much greater priorities.
With regard to commercial land release, this government has been under constant fire to take action to adequately supply a thriving market in the city. Whilst the Chief Minister will spruik that his economic management is the key to the property market in the ACT, people in touch with reality realise that the expansion of the federal government is what has provided the boost in the city. The ACT government has failed to even facilitate this growth. It does not need to create it; it just needs to make sure that it manages it. Not enough land release, a plan to strip away car parks, ripping the heart out of ACTION, increasing rates and charges—these are the actions of a government that expounds its support of a thriving economy.
When the government did release sites in the city, it did not even tell anyone. QE II, the most sought after site in Civic for some time, was tacked onto another project in Gungahlin. How on earth can that be considered a reasonable method of land release? Why would you seek to hide your best assets? The Property Council said:
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .