Page 2465 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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To fix the charge for five years, as is being proposed by Mr Seselja, would not be a good outcome for the community. It would not allow the government to respond to contemporary circumstances and ensure that the policy settings that are in place at the time actually reflect the best interests of the community at that time. The amendment seems to forget that all the regulations and instruments in the bill are disallowable, and therefore we can be certain that, if the Assembly does not agree with the government’s proposal, there is opportunity to ensure that it is not applied. That is why we will not be supporting that particular amendment.
I was very concerned to hear the Chief Minister talk about the preliminary costings of the revenue that would be forgone if that particular amendment went through. I think she said that initial costings seemed to indicate that $142 million would not be taken by the territory. That is a staggering amount of money. I think Mr Seselja really does need to explain how that would work and how he would seek to deal with that issue, particularly when we still have deficits in our budgets.
In relation to off-site works, these are exceptionally complicated to work out and this is a very simplistic approach again to a very complicated problem. There are times when it might be appropriate to consider off-site works and there are times when it would not be. And why should the community pay for something that would give a developer a reward? The Greens recognise that it would be administratively sensible to be able to offset some costs in some circumstances, and that is something that should be worked out; criteria should be set so that there is a clear understanding of what is and is not included.
The Liberals’ proposal is too simplistic. It seems to be predicated on the fact that anything developers do off site should be paid for by the community when a significant part of that value might well be constricted to proponents’ development. So the Greens will not support this part of the amendment either.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (7.33): The rejection of this amendment by the Greens and the Labor Party sums up what this is about for the Labor-Greens coalition. As we go through the various parts of this debate, we will see the absolute economic vandalism that is going to be imposed on the people of the ACT by the Labor Party and the Greens tonight.
This is a very poor piece of legislation. The more detail we go into, and indeed as we look ahead to the amendments that are being put forward by the Greens, the more we see the absolute lack of understanding and lack of regard for how this will impact on the market here in the ACT.
In relation to this amendment itself, by rejecting this amendment the Labor Party and the Greens are agreeing to an uncertain future and a schedule and a path forward that will create market distortions right along the way. It will impose massive burdens on Canberra families and a tax that—whilst the Treasurer claims it will not have much of an impact, any reasonable person can see that imposing taxes of upwards of $50,000 for every unit that is developed in the suburbs, where most redevelopment occurs, will have a significant and undeniable impact on redevelopment. And it will have a
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