Conveyancing drift

The Australian 29 may 09

THE late newspaperman Paddy McGuinness frequently advised reporters to "follow the money" in order to arrive at the root of any particular problem.

If that dictum is applied to the problems of building a national electronic conveyancing system, it is hard to avoid the trail of money laid down by the Government of Victoria.

If a national electronic conveyancing system is established, the Victorian Government will need to admit that much of the money it has spent on its state-based electronic conveyancing system has been wasted.

A national system -- by definition -- would operate in every state. And that would consequently render the Victorian system superfluous. Politically, that would be a catastrophe for the state Labor Government.

The state Opposition estimates that the Government has shelled out about $50 million on its e-conveyancing system.

Yet that potential embarrassment would disappear if the national system were somehow stymied.

Every year that a national system is delayed is another year in which buyers and sellers of houses are being deprived of cost savings that have been estimated to be worth $250 million.

Those benefits, however, are spread among a diffuse group of people in other states who might not be aware of what they have lost.