Unions ACT has hit back at the Canberra CBD group over its lobbying for more support of the city centre, saying the city's big property owners should not be putting out their hands for more public money.
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Unions ACT secretary Alex White said Canberra CBD was not a business owners' group but a property owners' group, representing big owners like the Queensland Investment Corporation which owns the Canberra Centre, with three members appointed by the Property Council.
If they wanted money spent on the city centre, they could afford to do it themselves, he said.
Canberra CBD has called on the government to help clean up and revitalise the city centre, asking for a delay on opening a new development front at West Basin. It wants a grants program to help Sydney and Melbourne building owners improve their properties, government garbage collection in Braddon, control of the graffiti removal funding, matched funding for public art, and action to deal with charity sellers and beggars.
Mr White said many of the suggestions, including the call for action on beggars and charity sellers, were about "the privatisation of public space".
"Most of their recommendations on the surface seem good, but it is actually the privatisation of public space in the interests of their corporate members. That is a dangerous path for us to be going," he said, accusing major property owners of deliberately running down the city to drive foot traffic and consumption into the Canberra Centre.
He questioned whether they should be given control of the city improvements levy, which is collected from property owners by the government and handed to Canberra CBD to spend – about $1.8 million this year.
The group spends the money on events, such as winter skating and Christmas lights, on beautification, cleaning and other projects and on promotion.
In its budget submission this year, it has asked the government to spend another $3 million a year improving Braddon, London Circuit, Bunda Street and Akuna Street.
But Mr White attack the request, saying, "If they're asking for millions more to do the job that we're already paying them to do, what are they doing with the money?
"... These major developers don't need to suckle at the teat of the public purse to redevelop Akuna Street and Bunda Street".
He was highly critical of the call to scrap the lease variation charge, a tax charged on redevelopments. While Canberra CBD says the government should revert to the former and much lower "change of use" charge, Mr White said the call was nothing more than an "egregious example of corporate rent seeking at its worst" and would give big property owners a windfall gain.
"What they're asking for is basically free money, they're effectively advocating for free money from the government to do up a whole bunch of property that they own."
