The head of the ACT government's Suburban Land Agency has said the agency was "not just profit-driven", but was looking to maximise revenue when it came to residential land sales.
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A Canberra boy who has returned to run the new agency, John Dietz made the comments during a speech to the ACT branch of the Australian Property Institute at the National Gallery of Australia on Thursday.
Mr Dietz' speech comes as the the territory government faces criticism over land sales revenue, which Chief Minister Andrew Barr has set at more than $2 billion over the next four years, with profit margins described as "gouging" buyers.
Since becoming Treasurer in 2011, Mr Barr has overseen a doubling of the government's land sales revenue, from $218 million in 2010-11 to an estimated $576 million this fiscal year, making Canberra's per square metre price second only to Sydney.
The agency was one of two bodies set up to replace the former Land Development Agency in the wake of scandals involving land at Glebe Park and businesses on Lake Burley-Griffin, and an explosive audit of the deals released in 2016.
While Mr Dietz outlined how the new agency was focussed on to improve governance and accountability of the territory's virtual monopoly land supplier, and wanted to Canberra to be "a city of great places where communities thrive", he also noted there was a way to go.
He told the forum since coming on board, the agency had looked internally at its reputation, finding existing homeowners saw it in a good light, but prospective buyers saw it as focussed only on profit and the industry believed it was "a boy's club".
Mr Dietz said when it came to the level of trust each of those groups held in the agency, "we don't have a tick in all those boxes".
He said he had had some "very direct phone calls" with industry members with both positive and negative things to say about the government's land agency.
"When we really sat and looked at it ourselves one of the concerns industry had at the time was that it was a little bit of a boy's club and if you needed to get into work with the government in the ACT you needed to be part of the club," Mr Dietz said.
Mr Dietz also outlined the separations between the agency, the City Renewal Authority and the planning directorate essentially, describing the agency as driven by the directorate's indicative land release schedule.
He said that one of the issues in the past was that "too much control" of land planning, release and development was in "one area", the now-defunct LDA.
Mr Dietz also said the question of whether it was "profit-driven" was a question "in the past", but if they were only driven by profit "why wouldn't we hold back the supply of land ensuring the demand stays high because then the profits would go through the roof?".
He said when it came to that question, and whether the agency was driven by revenue, it was "no, but a little bit of yes", and that if revenue was not catered for in other parts of government "then it is our role to get the best money we can, the best returns on investment".
But Mr Dietz said the agency and the board were looking to balance that financial responsibility with other social and environmental responsibilities.
He said in the case of for detached blocks for residential land sales the social and environmental responsibilities were already largely covered by the Territory Plan, through regulations guiding the nature of building homes in Canberra.
But he said he would argue that "in that particular case, yes we should, we probably should be maximising revenue", though there were "probably some conditions or objectives or ideas we might work with".
Mr Dietz said when it came to large multi-unit site, the agency may play a bigger rule, "looking to optimise community engagement" in "the way way we tender those blocks".
