Page 3066 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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The bill reflects this government’s commitment to ensuring that fair and just compensation is paid expeditiously when land is compulsorily acquired. The explanatory memorandum for the original Lands Acquisition Act noted a number of key principles behind the making of the act. These principles included the following: first, open procedures in the acquisition of property; second, public accountability of decisions to acquire property; third, compensation for people whose interest in property is acquired which recognises their interests, concerns and rights of appeal; and, finally, completing the acquisition of land expeditiously. In my view, this bill is consistent with these four underlying principles. In particular, it preserves existing procedural rights and facilitates the expeditious acquisition of land.
In considering any amendment to the Lands Acquisition Act, it is necessary to ensure that the amendment is consistent with the standing requirement that any compulsory acquisition of property be done on just terms. As members would be well aware, this is what section 23(1)(a) of the commonwealth Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988, otherwise known as the self-government act, requires.
This requirement is currently met by the Lands Acquisition Act, affirming the right to compensation and setting out the general principles for calculating the compensation amount. Specifically, section 42 of the act affirms the right to compensation. Section 45 and related sections detail the general principles for calculating the amount of compensation, including the need to have regard to the market value of the interest in the land and a number of other matters. Section 78 of the act expressly gives the Supreme Court and the High Court the power to review a compensation decision and substitute its own if considered necessary to ensure just terms of compensation.
In summary, this bill is to permit the territory executive to make an offer of compensation in the event that three years pass by without the interest holder making a claim. If such an offer is made after this three-year period, the interest holder relinquishes the right to make an original claim but retains the right to make a counter offer. This is the effect of new section 61A, inserted by clause 5. The offer of compensation and any review of the compensation amount must be consistent with the compensation principles I referred to earlier. As a result, this modest, targeted measure has no impact on the underlying compensation principles. The measure is, however, effective in facilitating the compensation negotiation process. I feel it will benefit both the territory and the people whose land is subject to compulsory acquisition.
I now turn to the application of review mechanisms to the measure in this bill. As my colleague has noted, the bill maintains existing rights around negotiations and review as to the amount of compensation to be paid. This has been achieved by expressly applying existing internal review and ACAT merit review processes to executive offers of compensation under new section 61A. In specific terms, these mechanisms are applied in the following way. An offer of compensation by the executive under new section 61A is an internally reviewable decision, as made clear by the amendment to section 104AA in clause 12. New section 62, inserted by clause 6, permits the recipient of an executive offer of compensation to accept or reject the offer. If the interest holder rejects the offer, the person must put forward an alternative sum or counter offer and indicate the reasoning behind this.
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