Crispin Hull

An ACT Liberal Government will grant automatic free lease renewals, cut payroll tax by 14 per cent, abolish the three-cents-a-litre fuel tax and contract out ACTION bus services, under promises made by Opposition Leader Kate Carnell yesterday. They were part of the small-business policy launched at a Mitchell-Gungahlin Chamber of Commerce lunch. A Liberal Government would set up a one-stop system for new businesses to deal with planning, leasing, building and other regulatory steps to set up a business. It would establish ACTTrade with a $5 million Budget to attract tourism and business to Canberra. Kingston foreshore would be redeveloped with outdoor cafes, medium density housing closer to the lake, offices and cultural space. The empty powerhouse would be converted to cultural space. “”At present it is an ACTEW dump in a prime site,” she said. “”A public-private corporation will be set up to get on with it.” A Liberal Government would set up a business-government body to cut red tape, similar to the Greiner model under which 3000 pages of regulations were repealed. Mrs Carnell indicated she would like to have freehold land, but said the Constitution prevented it. She promised automatic free renewal of all business and residential leases. The Government says it will charge 10 per cent of unimproved value for commercial leases and an administrative fee for residential leases. Mrs Carnell said the 10 per cent fee was unjustified because land values in Canberra indicated land was being treated as freehold, so the fee was a revenue-raising exercise. She promised to cut betterment tax from 100 per cent to 50 per cent. The tax is charged when people change the lease purpose of their land, say, to medium density housing or different commercial uses. Mrs Carnell said the Government had lost revenue since increasing the tax because commercial development had slowed because of it. Rates would be held to the CPI pending a renew on assessment methods. Mrs Carnell attacked business an employment costs. She said reducing payroll tax to NSW levels was not enough. The ACT had to attract business so she promised to cut it from 7 per cent to 6 per cent. (Payroll tax now nets the Government about $90 million a year. It is the largest revenue item.) She promised to abolish the rule requiring occupational health and safety committees and training in places that employed 10 or more people. The one-stop approach would mean that one person would be responsible for the carriage of a new business. This meant they were more accountable and could be rewarded for extra effort, she said. The ACT tourism and business promotion effort “”is a joke” compared to other states. The ACT spent $4.6 million on tourism, $2 million of it on promotion. Tasmania spent $22 million on promotion alone and the Northern Territory $21 million. A Liberal Government would begin development of Gungahlin Town Centre before end of the year. The legless lizard would be relocated (as was done at the Molonglo sewage treatment works). The centre would not be government-owned, nor owned by a large corporation _ as with the other centres. A strata title system would enable businesses to buy their shops in the centre. The Liberals would move away from youth training schemes because there were no jobs at the end of them and they unfairly raised expectations. Instead, employers would be subsidised to employ and train young people. On ACTION, Mrs Carnell said there would be competitive tenders for bus services with requirements to service certain routes. ACTION itself could tender competitively. She expected this would save $26 or $27 million of ACTION deficit of $50 million within three years. “”Under this system you tend to find more use of mini-buses and often you can get door-to-door service,” she said. Land tax would be assessed quarterly and only people earning an income from the land would be charged. After the launch she went to Ngunnawal to meet a home-owner, Normal Knowles, who has been hit by the present policy. Mr Knowles bought Tea Gardens, four 1857 rooms of which have been given a heritage listing, last year and is renovating with the intention of living in it. The house was extended in the 1950s. It now sits in a street surrounded by new houses. “”I was too honest; that’s my trouble,” he said yesterday. “”I filled out the land tax declaration and added a note that I was not living in the house but fixing it up before moving in.” The house does not have sewerage or water. He has never intended to rent it out. Mr Knowles was assessed for $1625 in land tax and the unimproved value of the place was assessed as $150,000 because the block is over 2000 square metres and was categorised as having medium density potential. However, the heritage listing prevents medium density development. Mrs Carnell said, “”Land tax is supposed to be for people renting places out; not for a renovator who intends to live there.” The Commissioner for ACT Revenue, Gordon Faichney, said the assessment and valuation had been objected to and the objections were under consideration. Several pics to chose from: Norman Knowles in unfinished bathroom// unfinished kitchen// outside (with or without Kate Carnell) at his partly renovated Ngunnawal home yesterday.

Brindabella, Ginninderra and Molonglo. By CRISPIN HULL Opposition Kate Carnell out-polled Chief Minister Rosemary Follett 20 booths to 11 in the central seat of Molonglo. Ms Follett took only two southside booths: Oaks Estate and Lyons. The booth-by-booth figures were issued by the ACT Electoral Commission at the close of counting early yesterday morning. The tables show the figures. The total booth-by-booth figures do not include postal and out of area votes, so the total is lower than the electorate count. Comparisons are difficult because Labor ran a ticket and the Liberals did not, so the Liberal vote was spread more among its candidates. The figures also show the effect of a ticket under Robson rotation. In Ginninderra, for example, voters took less notice of Labor’s ticket in the upmarket suburbs like Aranda and more notice in the lower-socio-economic suburbs _ perhaps it is a feature of education levels. In Aranda, for example, Roberta McRae, second on the ticket, got a higher proportion of first preferences than she did in the lower-end suburbs. In Molonglo, bucked the Labor ticket more in suburbs like Red Hill and Campbell than in Ainslie. In the former suburbs, second-placed Terry Connolly did proportionately better against first-placed Ms Follett. Perhaps it is an educational factor, or perhaps the up-market conservative suburbs preferred Mr Connolly.

However, there is a rough trend showing that the more up-market the suburbs the less inclined people were to follow the Labor ticket, though the trend is not as noticeable in Brindabella where there was widespread bucking of the ticket against the unknown first-placed Andrew Whitecross. Abbreviations in the tables are: Lab is Labor, Lib is Liberal, Grn is Green, MI is Moore Independent, SAV is Smokers are Voters and Civil Rights.

A Department of Health inspector has threatened the Canberra Blind Society with prosecution and a $20,000 fine for preparing food for public functions without a licence. The 12 women on the society’s auxiliary raise about $20,000 a year catering at functions with food prepared in their own kitchens. Now the department is demanding the society be licensed. “”They want to inspect our kitchens; we won’t stand for it,” the society’s president Molly Clark said in her spotlessly clean kitchen at her home in Griffith. “”And they want our recipes.” The department says it wants to reduce risks of food poisoning and would not charge fees to a charity. Money raised by the society is used to run the society’s office and is needed since a government grant was cut three years ago.

“If we lose our catering, we’ll have to reapply for the government grant,” Mrs Clark said. The society has been catering all meals and refreshments for 12 years, including for ACT Government bodies. The only complaint has not been about the food, but a request six years ago that the society be licensed that could not be enforced. The passing of the Food Act in 1992 has changed that. The department wrote to the society saying, (SUBS: plse leave in bureaucratic Capitals!) “”A search of our records has revealed that a Food Licence for your premises has not yet been issued. . . . The sale of food from food premises which do not hold a current licence breaches the requirements of the Food Act and can incur a maximum penalty of $5000 for an individual or $25,000 for a company.” The amount were in bold type. “”A moratorium of a few weeks is planned, after which legal proceedings will be commenced ”.
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Please leave in “”when asked to comment on the closure” … because it makes it clear Bates was not the leaker condemned by the spokesman). One of two post-natal wards at Woden Valley Hospital has been closed, with hospital management saying not enough patients were booked to justify it staying open and the AMA saying obstetricians were not consulted. ACT AMA president and obstetrician Dr Grahame Bates, when asked to comment on the closure, said it would make things tighter. “”It will put pressure on the nursing staff,” he said. “”It forces people out of hospital so they have quick through-put which makes the figures look good.” He had gone down to the ward last week and found it closed.

“”I thought they were cleaning,” he said. “”We are the last people to know.” A spokesman for Health Minister Terry Connolly said all 20 closed beds were fully staffed and funded. “”If 20 women turned up tonight requiring the beds, they would be open,” he said. “”But it was not good management or good for taxpayers’ money to have beds open when they are not needed.” The staff had been temporarily redeployed. The spokesman said people should know better than to run off to the media with scurrilous rumours, especially during an election campaign. The doctors and administrators who had to deal with the media inquiries had more important things to do _ looking after patients. The spokesman suggested that the leak to the media was politically motivated.

The question of who will form the next ACT Government will be determined on the floor of the ACT Legislative Assembly when it next meets _ next month. And that question will largely between determined by how the preferences fall in Saturday’s election. It now appears likely that the count will be quicker than expected. It appears probable that the Liberals have seven seats, Labor six, Greens two and one each for Michael Moore and Paul Osborne. On that scenario, if the Greens and Moore supported Labor Rosemary Follett would be Chief Minister. Osborne is any event is likely to support the Liberals so the Liberals would need Moore as well to get the Chief Ministership.

A Moore abstention would result in deadlock if the Greens went with Labor. On the other hand, if the Greens abstained because Labor did not deliver enough, the Chief Ministership would go to Kate Carnell irrespective of what Moore did. The Federal ACT Self-Government Act provides that at the first meeting of the Assembly after an election the Assembly shall first select a Speaker and then _ before any other business _ elect a Chief Minister. After the election of a Chief Minister the Chief Minister then appoints three other Ministers. To be elected Chief Minister an MLA needs a bare majority of those voting. That would usually mean nine of the 17, but might mean less if there are abstentions. There is a possibility of a deadlock if a combination of independents or Greens vote, say, with Labor against Kate Carnell and then with the Liberals against Rosemary Follett.
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With pic::: Kerrie Tucker recylces some of her posters from her unsuccessful 1993 Senate campaign. By CRISPIN HULL The Greens, who are now the leading minor parties and independents in the ACT elections, have a global and local message that would radically change society. The woodchip debate has brought the Greens into the limelight, but the ACT election policy and the Greens’ leading candidate are not widely known. Kerrie Tucker heads the Greens ticket in Molonglo and if there is no significant change in voting patterns in the last week of the campaign she could replace Michael Moore and hold the balance of power in the Assembly. “”Green” can mean a lot of different things to different people, and Greens policy goes well beyond natural environment matters. The Greens policy says: “”We aim to transform the political, social and economic structures that disempower people.” Tucker is an artist and gardener employed by the Canberra Environment Centre. She has lived in Canberra for 20 years and stood unsuccessfully in the Senate election in 1993 as Greens candidate.

She is “”committed to making Canberra the first ecologically sustainable city”. She says: “”We want to see a commitment from government to be sure that community participation and consultation is truly representative of all the people in a group or and area . . . . “”There are really interesting examples . . . For example, one woman I talked to from Brisbane, she was working in the Westend area of Brisbane and it had a lot of people who didn’t speak English, so they did artwork. They made a picture using fabric and paint to say how they wanted their area to be. So that was an example of reaching people who normally wouldn’t dream of coming to a residents meeting of a community-group meeting.” Question: What happens if you find that the community view is different from one of your policies or what you want.
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I‘m on mobile 018 697972. If it does not answer try again half an hour later. At squash. picture: Zafar Ahmad, his wife Paryeen and second child Farheema at their Theodore homes yesterday. The Ahmad family arrived home from six weeks’ holiday last week to be told they have arsenic readings on their land four times the recommended safety level as a result of an old sheep dip at the site and they should consider moving. The level is higher than at two houses next door where the families were moved. However, Zafar Ahmad said ACT government officials had told his wife, Paryeen, that she could continue with a day-care group of five or six children that she runs before and after school, provided parents were told and children play at the back, not at the front of the house where the high readings were taken.

The day-care business is virtually gone. The Government has offered to help with the Ahmad’s move, but the Theodore Action Group says families should be offered legal help, counselling and guarantees of compensation before moving. Mr Ahmad said his neighbours had been gone for four months before he knew about it. The extent of arsenic on his land was only discovered in later testing. The problem of arsenic poison came about after the Minders of Tuggeranong Homestead and the Canberra Conservation Council started questioning about suitability of building houses on the homestead site which had a sheep dip. About 15 potentially contaminated sites have been found in Canberra residential areas and about 60 elsewhere in the ACT. Most were found from historic photographs and old maps and are being investigated with on the ground testing. The Theodore one is the only one where people have been moved.
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The following is a potted history of government in the ACT. 1890s: Constitutional conventions and NSW and Victorian politicians argue about whether Sydney or Melbourne should be the capital of the new Australia. Compromise is a separate capital in a federal territory within NSW but greater than 100 miles (160km) from Sydney. 1900: Constitution of Australia Act passes the British Parliament. Section 125 says the federal territory shall be greater than 100 square miles and shall be “”vested in the Commonwealth”. Section 120 gives the Commonwealth parliament power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of territories. 1911: Seat of Government Act creates the territory. All existing NSW law is brought over as at that date. New law is created by Ordinances approved by the Minister for Territories with the formal stamp of the Governor-General. 1930: Advisory Council set up: three department heads; three elected members and civic administrator.

1949: Cole report suggests municipal government for Canberra. 1949: ACT gets seat in Federal House of Representatives, initially only to have vote on ACT matters. Dr L. Nott elected. Jim Fraser elected in 1951. 1958: National Capital Development Commission set up _ anecdotally “”rules” Canberra through leasing and planning requirements. 1966: Full voting rights for Federal MP (Jim Fraser). 1967: Advisory Council, chaired by Jim Pead (Ind), by now fully elected seeks greater power. Council consists of 3 ALP, 3 Ind, 2 Lib, 1 True Whig, setting a three-decade pattern for Canberrans to vote independent and zany in greater or equal proportion to each of the major parties. 1969: All members of Advisory Council resign over three major decisions by Federal Territories Minister Peter Nixon. Nixon accepts resignations a reappoints all to an interim council to serve out the term till 1970.
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The federal director of the Liberal Party, Andrew Robb, said last night that winning the seat of Canberra would be a very difficult task, despite the Liberals’ good result in the ACT election. Earlier, the party had been undecided about whether to run a candidate at all because it was a 10 per cent seat. Mr Robb said this cautious approach had been confirmed by subsequent polling. Even with things going well for the Liberals locally in the ACT campaign and election the party was still down nine points federally in the ACT, according to state and territory break-ups in national polling done by The Sydney Morning Herald. Considering that Brindabella had got the least swing to the Liberals locally it showed that “”the seat of Canberra would be a pretty tall order”. “”But nothing is impossible,” he said.

When the Act Liberal Party expressed doubts about standing after the resignation of Ros Kelly, the former Liberal Member for Canberra, John Haslem, denounced the lack of will to stand and said he would be willing to stand again.
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The referendum to entrench the Hare-Clark electoral system is comfortably ahead, according to the latest Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll. The poll puts in the Yes vote at 58 per cent; No at 26 and undecided at 17.

However, the referendum may not be passed because Federal law requires that a majority of every enrolled voter approve it before it is passed. Because 10 per cent usually do not vote and about 6 per cent of those that do vote informal, it would require 60 per cent of the valid vote to be passed. The referendum is to decide whether the Hare-Clark voting system, which was approved by 64 per cent of people in an advisory referendum in 1992, be entrenched so that it can only be amended by referendum or a two-thirds majority of the Assembly. The referendum was proposed after an attempt by Labor to introduce above-the-line party voting was defeated in the Assembly. The affect of that would have been to hand to party machines the right to nominate a party ticket. The present system does not allow for a party vote; voters have to select candidates individually and the ballot papers are printed according to Robson rotation. This means the order of candidates on the ballot paper is scrambled so some papers, for example, might have the Labor team with Lamont at the top and others with Connolly and others with Follett.
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