Page 2350 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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Mr Wall raised a question in relation to strata title car parks in Braddon. I can advise Mr Wall that the fixed commercial rates in relation to strata titled car parks do not apply, so in the example he used he needs to deduct nearly $2,000 from the costs associated with the car park arrangements. I think he will find that significantly changes the nature of the analysis that he put forward.
To Mr Smyth, I say two things. I think you eat doughnuts; you do not stretch them. And in relation to vacancy rates in the commercial property sector, now is the best time to be approaching the market, because there are going to be a large number of property owners interested in new tenants. We are going to get a very good rate and a very good response from the market. As the Property Council have indicated, they are very supportive of this process, because it will enable competition and it will ensure that the government is able to access accommodation at a very reasonable rate. And it is an opportunity for us: if this process is effective and the market is as desperate for new tenants as we are hearing, we may well save money by moving out of more expensive accommodation into cheaper accommodation now because of the conditions of the market. So now is the perfect time to be approaching it. We have gone to the market with a variety of options—with adaptive re-use, a new build or being a major tenant for one of the developments that are already in the pipeline. All of those opportunities are there, and we look forward to a very robust response from the market, similar to what we achieved in Gungahlin.
Mr Coe is concerned that development is stifled in the city. Mr Smyth, a few moments later, said: “No; there’s too much development. There are too many development fronts. Too much is going on.” Then both of them seemed to suggest that, with too much going on—it seemed to be entirely incongruous—there was Senator Seselja’s suggestion that what we need is another development front, west of the Tuggeranong town centre.
The final observation to make at this point in the debate is this: could the Liberal Party please get on one side of the debate or the other in relation to Tuggeranong. Do we need more development fronts Senator Seselja style or are we opposing them Brendan Smyth style? Which member for Tuggeranong do we believe? Have we got too many development fronts, Mr Smyth, or not enough, Senator Seselja? Sort yourselves out. Come back to us with a position.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR BARR: You know you have upset them when they start responding, Mr Assistant Speaker. You know you get under their skin when they start responding. That is what we have seen. We have seen Star Wars, we have seen Olympics, we have seen doughnuts, we have seen incorrect government pay offers and we have seen a misunderstanding of how tax applies. Then we have got absolute confusion within the Liberal Party over how many development fronts we should have in the city. On one hand, too much is going on; on another, there is not enough and everything is being stifled. It is just a ball of confusion on that side of the chamber. That is what you get when you get five or six different people pushing in disparate directions, all with their own pet projects, pursuing the classic individualist Liberal position that it is about only themselves and no-one else.
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