Page 3674 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Of course, the commence and complete fee structure is designed to send a clear financial signal, a monetary signal, to those property owners that if they do not get on and develop their land in a timely manner they are going to face some significant financial liabilities. So that is the whole purpose of commence and complete fees. And that is why I have said, as the responsible minister, to the property sector that whilst I understand their concerns about some elements of the commence and complete fees and whilst I am open to looking at adjustments to the structure, the territory must retain the capacity to send a signal to leaseholders that there is a penalty associated with their failure to complete or commence development on their site.
These are issues that do not just have an impact on the owner of the development site. These are issues that have an impact on their neighbours and on their broader neighbourhoods and communities. People do not like the fact that sites sit undeveloped. People get fed up, quite frankly, with blocks of land that are left undeveloped for extended periods of time.
One of the issues that the government will need to address, as part of its response to the conflicting issues that arise, is the fact that some developers and some property owners have chosen to do the right thing and have paid the commence and complete fees and recognised that that is a liability that they have to meet. Others have chosen not to do so for a variety of reasons, and many of them have fairly complex personal circumstances surrounding them. Nevertheless, we are dealing now with two categories of people: those who have chosen to pay their fees and those who have not, for whatever reason. We will need to take all of those factors into account.
My directorate is currently preparing options for the government’s consideration on how else we can strengthen our enforcement of undeveloped or derelict sites. These are issues that the government will undertake further steps on in the coming months.
The purpose of rising today, first of all, is to make these observations and, secondly, to indicate to members that I am proposing a slight amendment to Mr Rattenbury’s proposed amendment (2)(b) to recognise that the government is already in the process of reviewing the operation of the commence and complete fee structure, and that the government is very happy to provide a report to the Assembly in an appropriate time frame, which I suggest should be the end of the financial year.
The purpose of that, of course, is that it will allow the government to look at these issues in the context of the development of the forthcoming budget, because these are matters that potentially have revenue implications for the government that need to be fully taken into account. With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I move the following amendment to Mr Rattenbury’s proposed amendments:
Omit paragraph (2)(b), substitute:
“(2) (b) notes the Government is currently reviewing the operation of the fee structure, and will provide a report to the Assembly by the end of the financial year.”.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video