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Greens parliamentarian Caroline Le Couteur has blasted the evidence of public servants to a parliamentary inquiry as "confusing and disturbing at the very least". Ms Le Couteur told the ACT parliament on Thursday that the contradictory evidence from Land Development Agency officials was "Abbott and Costello level comedy". Ms Le Couteur tabled a report from the Assembly's planning committee, which she chairs, detailing evidence from land officials over the decision to spend $4.2 million buying land from developers Barry Morris and Graham Potts in Glebe Park in 2015. The report called on the government to correct any evidence that needed correcting as soon as possible. The Glebe Park purchase was among those criticised by Auditor-General Maxine Cooper last year as poorly justified and lacking rigour and transparency. Dr Cooper found the agency went beyond its powers by deciding to buy the Glebe Park land without board approval. According to the report, when questioned about the decision not to seek board approval, Land Development Agency David Dawes said it had been within his delegation to buy land up to $10 million without going to the board. That interpretation of the law had hinged on the definition of land purchases as either "strategic" or "project", with Glebe Park classified as a "project acquisition", which he believed he had been entitled to authorise. Acting deputy director-general of land development Neil Bulless told the inquiry that "there was an interpretation document drafted within the LDA on how to interpret the [policy] framework" but "as the audit has found, that was incorrect in its assumptions". There had been a view within the agency, based on "advice at the time", that some projects were "normal business" and did not have to go to the board. Asked where that advice had come from, he told the inquiry it had been "developed internally within the LDA". Asked why Glebe Park had not been included in the list of strategic acquisitions in the land agency's annual report, Mr Bulless said it was an oversight, but Mr Dawes said the purchase was not a strategic acquisition but rather a project acquisition. Mr Dawes also told the inquiry that the Glebe Park purchase had driven the decision to write the internal policy document that interpreted the land acquisition rules. But after last year's audit report, the agency discovered that the wording of the policy had changed "unbeknown to both ourselves internally and the board", he said. The meaning had been "inadvertently changed to include the word 'all'", and as a result the agency's purchases were not in line with the policy, he said. Asked which agency had changed the wording, Mr Dawes said he did not know. Ms Le Couteur's committee report said the land agency had been "less than clear" in its answers about where its incorrect interpretation of the land-buying rules had come from. "In the view of some committee members, it is unlikely that the LDA was unable to identify who had carriage of that document, and would have been better advised to provide more direct answers to the committee's questions in this regard," it concluded. It was an essential that correct information was provided to the parliament, and "some committee members are concerned that this may not have occurred in relation to the land purchase in question", the report said, calling on the government to review and correct the evidence if necessary. The report also detailed evidence on the role of Ben Parsons, who stepped in to broker a deal between the owners of the Mr Spokes bike hire business and the agency in 2015. Mr Parsons contacted Mr Spokes offering to help free of charge, but was later paid by the Land Development Agency. Dr Dawes told the inquiry that Mr Parsons had been engaged by Mr Spokes as an intermediary but the agency itself did "not traditionally employ a broker to act for us per se". Mr Parsons had been paid as "part and parcel of the negotiated outcome". Urban renewal head Liz Lopa said Mr Parsons had been paid in the same way Mr Spokes's accountant and lawyer had been paid.

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