The Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation was an agency of the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...

operating from 1972 until its abolition in 2014. It was created as part of the

Whitlam government The Whitlam government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party. The government commenced when Labor defeated the McMahon government at the 1972 Australian federal elect ...

’s National Growth Centre project in an effort to decentralise the population, the corporation role was to manage and develop land with the aim to grow the Albury-Wodonga region to 300,000 people by the year 2000. The corporation had a unique tripartite legal structure in that there existed three statutory corporations – one belonging to the Commonwealth (''Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation''), one belonging to Victoria (''Albury-Wodonga (Victoria) Corporation'') and one to New South Wales (''Albury-Wodonga (New South Wales) Corporation''). The three corporations were legally distinct, but in practice acted as a single entity.

History

In 1972 the Whitlam Federal Labor government selected the cross-border towns of

Albury Albury (; ) is a major regional city that is located in the Murray River, Murray region of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the twin city of Albury–Wodonga, Albury-Wodonga and is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of ...

(New South Wales) and

Wodonga Wodonga (pronounced ; ) is a city on the Victorian side of the border with New South Wales, north-east of Melbourne, Australia. It is part of the twin city of Albury-Wodonga and is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of Wodonga L ...

(Victoria) to form the Albury-Wodonga Growth Centre. The Albury-Wodonga Corporation, a Commonwealth statutory authority, was established by the Albury-Wodonga Development Act 1973. The role of the corporation was originally as a land developer within the Albury-Wodonga region. The National Growth Centre project officially ended in 1995, but the corporation continued to function. However, in 2004 the corporation ceased development activities at which time it owned 6,500 hectares. It then became the corporation's responsibility to dispose of property assets and provide a financial return to the government in preparation for its abolition. It was decided in 1995 to wind up the corporation. It was agreed in February 1997 that the wind-up would be phased, with the state corporations to be abolished first (their assets passing to the federal corporation upon abolition), with the federal corporation to be abolished subsequently. The NSW state corporation was abolished on 26 September 2003 as provided for by th
Albury-Wodonga Development Repeal Act 2000 (Act No.18, 2000)
The abolition of the Victorian state corporation was effected by th
Albury-Wodonga Agreement (Repeal) Act 2003 (No. 62 of 2003)
In July 2014, the ''Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation (Abolition) Act 2014'' was passed by the Commonwealth parliament and the wind up of the federal corporation began. By the end of 2014 the federal corporation had been wound up and the remaining assets transferred to the Department of Finance.

References

{{reflist Defunct Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia Albury