Professor Michelle Norris:

At the moment, the LDA is required to negotiate one-to-one with other State bodies for the transfer of lands. State bodies obviously have their own objectives. Housing delivery may not be one of them. Land transfer for housing purposes may not be something that suits their other agenda. In my view, a way of dealing with this challenge would be to route those big land transfer decisions through the Cabinet subcommittee on housing. The CEO of the agency or even the line Minister could be brought in to make these agreements. The problem for the LDA is that the negotiation with all the individual bodies is enormously challenging. It can take a long time. It either needs legislation to require transfers, where the LDA requests it, or needs to be dealt with it through a Cabinet subcommittee. That bit of the LDA's mandate needs to be given more attention.