Page 2198 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
allowed the LDA some autonomy in making acquisitions in return for satisfying criteria set out in the framework. Notably, the framework required the LDA for each acquisition to state a linkage between the acquisition and a relevant planning document or policy. The LDA was not able to do this because the western edge study flagged in the ACT planning strategy for 2012 has never been done.
The unelected officials were making acquisition decisions without the authority of cabinet, without meeting legislative requirements, and, at the same time, they were allowing their decision-making processes to be captured by a private firm with significant interests in the ACT property market.
But it does not stop there. For one of the properties, the LDA supported a process to divide the property. One part of it was acquired by the LDA and the other by a private buyer. The proportion acquired by the LDA has significantly smaller road frontage to Cotter Road, which is one of the strategic aims of acquisition in that area. This decision seems to fly in the face of all conventional wisdom on what makes the property valuable. Moreover, other sellers asked if they could divide their properties and were rebuffed by the LDA. It seems that the LDA had the ability to decide who could and could not divide their properties.
I think it is worth noting that there is a significant amount of discussion in the early part of this report about the underpinning rural policy and I suppose, to some extent, that that is a legacy of my involvement in rural policy even before I became a member of this place. Before I was a member of this place, I was an adviser and advised the then planning minister on rural issues. I was involved in the establishment of the rural task force in 1988 and have had an abiding interest in rural leasing issues in the ACT ever since.
I brought to the committee inquiry an insight that not many other people would have had because of the privileged position that I have had. I think that it is worth putting on the record my long-standing commitment to this. This is why it became quite clear to me, and to others, that the issues related to the division of the property known as Fairvale was probably illegal.
The ongoing rural policy for the ACT has been anti division of property and, rather, has gone to consolidating. There are lots of reasons for that, the principal ones being that the rural backdrop of the ACT is an important part of our planning structure and the beautification of the bush capital; but, also for sustainability terms, larger properties are, in many ways, easier and more efficient to manage. There has been a consistent approach that that is contrary to the subdivision of land.
In fact, what we saw with the subdivision of Fairvale was pretty much a sleight of hand. Eventually, officials said, “We did not actually subdivide it. What happened was that the owner surrendered the lease and then we issued two leases in its place.” But I think, as the old expression potato-potato goes, it was a subdivision. It looks like a subdivision, it walks like a subdivision, it quacks like a subdivision; and I think that it is a matter of considerable concern that this was allowed to happen by unrepresentative, unelected officials in a very important and significant way. The whole process has been clouded in many ways. In the case of Milapuru, the LDA sent
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video