4 September 2008

Googong transfer makes Jon Stanhope the Lord of the Rivers

| johnboy
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In the frantic last days before the caretaker period kicks in the Stanhope Government is getting a lot of stuff done.

Today Our Brave Leader has announced that he’s finally secured the ownership of the Googong dam under a 150 year lease.

As part of the deal ACTEW will keep providing water to fuel Queanbeyan’s parasitic growth along our border.

    ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, NSW Premier Morris Iemma and Federal Minister for Finance and Deregulation Lindsay Tanner jointly confirmed the transfer today.

    “I am delighted to say that the Federal Government, ACT Government and NSW State Government have worked together to rightfully bring control of Googong Dam to the ACT,” Mr Stanhope said. “This historic agreement is crucial to ensuring long-term water security for Canberra, Queanbeyan and our surrounding regions.

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Johnboy #19…….and by that you mean?

RuffnReady……..check out the Commonwealth Grants Commission and how much ACT residents are per capita being subsidised by the rest of Australia.

He needs to ensure he will have the water for his Arboretum. http://the-riotact.com/?p=8715

More ‘drought proofing’ of the ACT’s water supply

I wonder when MLA rain-dancing will be de rigeur

When Canberra suburbs conform to the border the way Queanbeyan does to ours I’ll stop calling it a parasite.

Knows Best said :

Johnboy…….what a load of crap about parasitic growth, You actually believe what Stanhope says? The NSW Government pays tens of millions to the ACT Government every year for any cross border servicing for health services and education.

Queanbeyan was settled about 1835 and the ACT was a village in 1935, a 100 years later. People live in Queanbeyan because they are sick and tired of schools being closed, roads chocked in the morning and afternoon, no land for housing in the ACT, and technology centres being loocated on their front door. The ACT has been subsidised by the rest of Australia for the last 70 odd years…..so who’s the parasite now? And by the way where do you think the water comes from anyway…….NSW!!!!

Hahahahaha… check the inferiority complex on Brad! A throwaway line has this man up in arms!

People live in Queanbeyan because they grew up there, work there, or the real estate is cheaper, I doubt it has anything to do with Canberra school closures, these mythical traffic jams you have imagined, or whatever that third reason is meant to be.

The ACT is subsidised by the rest of Australia? Really? I think not. If the Commonwealth paid properly for the upkeep of the Triangle (which is the only Federal money we get that other jurisdictions don’t as far as I know) it might ease some of the obvious budgeting woes Canberra experiences due to its small tax base.

la mente torbida11:25 am 05 Sep 08

@knows best

Obviously you do… can’t argue with ignorance, you’ll just drag it down to your level and beat me with experience

Johnboy…….what a load of crap about parasitic growth, You actually believe what Stanhope says? The NSW Government pays tens of millions to the ACT Government every year for any cross border servicing for health services and education. Queanbeyan was settled about 1835 and the ACT was a village in 1935, a 100 years later. People live in Queanbeyan because they are sick and tired of schools being closed, roads chocked in the morning and afternoon, no land for housing in the ACT, and technology centres being loocated on their front door. The ACT has been subsidised by the rest of Australia for the last 70 odd years…..so who’s the parasite now? And by the way where do you think the water comes from anyway…….NSW!!!!

The Googong Dam is owned by the Commonwealth on Commonealth owned land in NSW. Leasing entitlements have nothing to do with NSW or ACT law. At least the Agreement now ensures water will be provided for Googoog and Tralee developments in NSW.

It’s only a lease. The dam is still effectively in NSW, therefore I doubt the 99 year lease thing would apply.

Personally I really don’t think it will make much difference.

captainwhorebags10:14 pm 04 Sep 08

Pandy: sorry, should have provided a bit of back story.

In the last NSW election, Pru Goward promised her constituents that she would work with the Howard government to pipe water from Googong to Goulburn because she was convinced that Googong was a massive water storage near to overflowing.

When told that Googong was actually around the 40% mark (and only there because water had been pumped into it from the Cotter Catchment) she said “Well Canberra can just cope”. Stupid political point scoring rolled into some Canberra bashing.

Gotta give a bit of credit to ACTEW and the government over movements on the future of Canberra water. They are buying water from Tantangara (owned by SnowyHydro), and will use the pipeline to Googong to store it there. They are increasing the size of the Cotter. There is evidence of long-term future planning going on here – they see that the droughts are getting worse and that water security for Canberra means new infrastructure and changes to behaviour (thus the water restriction regime and public education campaigns). Actually, gotta say, local water policy is one of the most coherent and long-thinking rafts of policy I’ve seen from a local, state or federal government since free tertiary education!

National water policy, OTOH, is a sham…

🙁

I have a faint recollection that the reason the ACT had 99 year leases was to encourage turnover of private land… to discourage people building unsightly / ungainly permanent structures? as would befit a planned city.

Suck on that Pru.

what?

Crikey said :

I hope Steve Whan can sleep at night after giving more of the great State of New South Wales to the ACT basket-case territory.

yeah, we only had a naval base before….

captainwhorebags4:49 pm 04 Sep 08

Suck on that Pru.

I hope Steve Whan can sleep at night after giving more of the great State of New South Wales to the ACT basket-case territory.

Perhaps because the ACT isn’t leasing it? Instead a transfer of governing powers / management?

Spectra, my understanding is that it is a restriction not ACT-specific, but in some way tied to the laws that govern leases, which presumably date back to British common law.
Crown land leases in NSW, I understand are 99 years maximum too. That’s why I asked the question – if everything else is maxxed out at 99, why is this 150?

Aurellus: Remember – the lease is being issued by the people who make the laws – if there was in fact such a limitation, they have ample power to change it (also, the dam is in NSW, so if it was an ACT-specific restriction, it would not apply anyway). The only exception would be if such a limitation was in the constitution, and I don’t recall seeing it there (though I don’t claim to have a perfect recall of that document…).

I always thought the reason land in the ACT was leased for 99-years was that was the limit within our legal system. (similar to why the British lease of Hong Kong ran out in 1997) So this 150-year lease strikes me as odd.
Any law-talking types out there able to clarify that?

does that mean the ACT border has shifted, are we a bit bigger?

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