Page 3630 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 22 November 2022
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The average household rates bill has gone up 10 per cent every year—every single year!—for the past decade. We are all paying a lot more and getting a lot less from this Labor-Greens government.
Not only that; the Treasurer has delivered so many budget deficits, and borrowed so much money, that by 2025-26 Canberrans will be paying over half a billion dollars a year in interest repayments alone! That is $1,000 for every Canberran every year, just to service the Treasurer’s debt.
On top of that, add the taxes and borrowings required to fund health care, education, police, emergency services, transport, justice, housing and climate action. The Barr era has gifted Canberrans with declining services, high taxes, record debt and at least 10 deficits in a row. What a legacy!
Now, to top it off, co-funding for critical road projects from the commonwealth government will be diverted into that Labor-Greens white elephant the tram. Earlier this year, the ACT transport minister himself welcomed the co-funding for the road upgrades from the commonwealth government. He said:
The ACT Government welcomes continued investment in our city by the Australian Government to co-fund these urban road projects, but we strongly believe the ACT should receive the same share of funding for improvements for regional roads as other states.
He welcomed this funding commitment from the federal government. He supported this funding commitment from the federal government. Lo and behold, once the decision to axe these projects was announced, the ACT minister has changed his tune, calling it “all pork”. This, in itself, is downright laughable, given how he and his colleagues spent years howling about how the federal government, under the coalition, was not giving the ACT its fair share of funding. In fact, in his “welcoming” statement on these road projects, he pointedly made that dig. I again quote the minister’s own words:
… we strongly believe the ACT should receive the same share of funding for improvements for regional roads as other states.
I know this gaslighting government has no shame whatsoever in its hypocrisy, but this is beyond a joke, after spending years complaining that we have been ripped off by the federal government, to now take aim and say that these road closures were “all pork”!
You cannot get any more ridiculous than this minister’s pathetic excuses to deflect from the real issue at stake here—that is, this government’s absolute and utter failure to be up-front and transparent with Canberrans about stage 2, how much will it cost, and when will it be delivered.
Not only are road safety and maintenance important responsibilities of the ACT government, but most Canberrans are road users as motorists and passengers in a diverse range of vehicles and rightly expect our roads to be maintained. Instead we are getting roads filled with potholes, which this Labor-Greens government is not even
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