Business leases the cause of ACT budgetary woes?

Rural leases are not that simpole – they are a mess in fact. Decades ago they were issued ad hoc, so all sorts of different ones are still on the books. Plenty were 30 year leases. With differing conditions around what you can do with the land – mainly that it should look attractibve and ‘rural’ while still being some sort of ‘business’.

And rural leases are not treated as permanent – you try selling one with only 3 years left to go on it.

I’m sorry, but if this Peter Martin can’t bother to get the basics right – there ain’t no “House of Assembly” in the ACT (although the advisory ACT body was brifely called that in the late 70s) – I’m going to struggle to accept anything else he says.
The leasehold system in the ACT has long been the cause of headaches, rural lessees get 20 year leases, commercial 50, and residential 99. However the market treats all property leases as permanent, and values them accordingly. For the government not to extend leases for free or peppercorn would collapse the entire ACT economy.
There was talk some years ago about making residential leases 999 years, but the Commonwealth put the kybosh on it.