Liberals, Greens probe Land Development Agency split

ACT Labor passed a bill in principle to separate the agency into two new bodies, the City Renewal Authority and the Suburban Land Agency, with the help of the Greens on Tuesday. The details of the legislation will be further debated on Thursday.

But Liberals leader Alistair Coe said the division was a "superficial" attempt to address the problems around land management that his party would not support.

"We have serious concerns with this proposed piece of legislation, specifically it does not address the issues that plagued the Land Development Agency during its operation and furthermore the establishment of two separate agencies is unnecessary, overly bureaucratic and quite frankly will lead to wastage with regards to government resources," Mr Coe said.

"None of the auditor general's recommendations the government agreed upon have been included in this bill.

"There's no section in this legislation that requires the City Renewal Authority or the Suburban Land Agency to identify the purpose of land aquisitions during the process and document the process.

"There is no section that says they need to rely on independent evaluations ... and there's no section that documents the reasons and rationales for the price paid for acquisitions."

Auditor-General Maxine Cooper excoriated the Land Development Agency last year over its purchases of land in Glebe Park and two lakeside businesses.

She said the purchases lacked transparency, accountability and rigour and their integrity and probity could not be demonstrated.

Dr Cooper also found the agency had manipulated a document requested under freedom of information laws and questioned millions of dollars paid to one consulting firm.

Mr Coe said the new bill needed to include requirements for consultation and for board members to public declare conflicts of interest.

He also said the accountability measures for the Suburban Land Agency needed to be raised to be in line with those for the City Renewal Authority, despite a perception the latter agency was ore open to corruption.

"These go to the very heart of transparency and public confidence and none of these measures are included in the bill," Mr Coe said.

"The potential for fraudulent and corrupt behaviour in this area remains high while the assurance of transparency and accountability remains low.

"Why replace the LDA with two similarly opaque agencies?"

However Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the auditor-general's findings had been "extensively canvassed" and called it "nonsense" to suggest every aspect of the operation of the agencies needed to be spelled out in law.

"It is certainly our job as legislators to set out the framework in which territory authorities are permitted to operate and the parliamentary process provides more than sufficient opportunity for scrutiny of decisions by the boards of statutory authorities - as Australia Post found out earlier this year," Mr Barr said.

Mr Barr said the Liberals' criticism of splitting the LDA into two agencies was at odds with their own election policy which stated they would reform the agency.

He said the bill outline a "duty" for the agencies to consult the public, and clearly separated the agencies from the ACT government public service to reduce any conflict of interest.

Greens crossbencher Caroline Le Couteur said while her party supported the split, she wanted more clarity about how other city precincts not under the City Renewal Authority's jurisdiction, like Kingston Foreshore, would be managed.

She said they would amend the bill to help provide the "legal infrastructure" to make the ACT a world leader in sustainable urban development.

The Greens also wanted a mandate the develop affordable and accessible housing to be underpinned in the legislation.

"This is an opportunity to get Canberra's planning and development division on the right track," Ms Le Couteur said.