Now the Coalition has control of the Senate we know it will revisit rejected laws on industrial relations and the privatisation of Telstra.
But other bills were also rejected by the earlier hostile Senate, including some affecting the ACT.
The vexed question of the ACT leasehold system is likely to be put back on the national political agenda, especially because one of the senators who now make up the Coalition’s new majority is Senator Gary Humphries, Chief Minister of the ACT for a tad over a year from October 2000 and ACT Minister for Land and Planning from 1995 to 1998 when Kate Carnell was Chief Minister.
Now, when ACT leasehold is put on the agenda, put your inconsistency humbug alert on. Neither side of federal or territory politics can claim high principle here.
First to some history. In 1997 the ACT Government had persuaded its federal Liberal colleagues that the ACT leasehold system was holding back development and something should be done – bearing in mind that the ACT had suffered economically from public-sector cuts by the Keating and later, more severely, by the Howard Government.
In 1989, when the ACT got self-government, federal law said the ACT Legislative Assembly could grant no greater estate in land than a 99-year lease. Business thought that this was not well understood outside the ACT and thus hindered the financing of land. Gosh, what if the lease ran out and the mortgagee was left without security?
In an ideal world for business, the leasehold system would be scrapped, as had happened in the Northern Territory when it attained semi-self-government in the mid 1970s. All 99-year non-pastoral leases in the Northern Territory were converted to freehold in a single stroke by the new County-Liberal Government. The hitherto leasehold burghers of Darwin and Alice Springs applauded and re-elected the CLP Government every time for 26 years.
The move to freehold could not happen in the ACT, however, because Section 125 of the Constitution says: “The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be . . . vested in and belonging to the Commonwealth.”
It suggests (and there is conflicting opinion on this) that the Commonwealth must have the freehold and all other title must be lesser.
So the next-best thing for those who wanted de-facto freehold in the ACT would be to increase the standard lease from the present 99 years to 999 years.
And thus on 4 December 1997 (at the urging of the ACT Liberal Government in which Humphries was Planning Minister) a law passed without amendment in the Federal House of Representatives increasing the power of the ACT legislative Assembly to grant leases for up to 999 years. It would be very popular in Canberra and give much kudos to the ACT Government for urging it, but the Bill lapsed at the 1998 election. After the election it was reintroduced and passed the House or Representatives again, but the Senate rejected it — essentially by Labor, which had to swallow its usual principle of supporting local democracy. That was in February 2000 and was never heard of since. It might well be soon.
But for 999 leases to apply it will take major federal intervention. Those arguing for a change will not be satisfied with just giving the Legislative Assembly the power to increase leases to 999 years, because the Stanhope Government will simply not exercise the power. No, they will want the Federal Government (with its new-found Senate power) to increase all the leases directly. It will be in the national interest, of course.
That approach will sit easily with the Federal Government’s new view that the Feds should keep as firm control over the ACT as possible. That was displayed in its rejection last month (JUNE) of all the major recommendations of the Joint Parliamentary Committee’s report on the ACT that the ACT Parliament should have wider power.
Bear in mind with Labor in power in the ACT, the Coalition Federal Government has completely changed its tune about the capacity of the people of the ACT to govern themselves.
When the 999-lease was knocked back in the Senate in 2000, this is what the then Federal Minister for Territories, Senator Ian Macdonald, said: “We have confidence in the ability of the ACT to make decisions for itself. If the ACT chooses to do something with lease periods then it should have the ability to make that decision. Labor simply says ‘No, we in the Big House on the Hill know better’. That’s their approach to everything – Big Brother knows best!
“The actions of Labor today are undemocratic and mean that ACT residents are denied long tenure available to people of every other State of Australia and the Northern Territory.
“It relegates residents of the ACT to second-class citizenship compared to the rest of Australia not just in terms of tenure but in terms of the ability to govern themselves.”
Canberra business, which has long been an opponent of 99-year leasehold, will also have to shuffle its position. Business has usually favoured more power for the ACT Legislative Assembly – which it can usually influence more – and less power for the National Capital Authority. If 999 year leases are to be back on the agenda it will require business to turn a blind eye to major federal intervention.
At the ACT level, the Liberal Party will also have to juggle the principle of ACT autonomy against what might be a fairly popular move to 999 year leases – even if it is imposed from the Big House on the Hill.