Page 1660 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
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There are a number of revenue measures which the Government has been forced to take and which we will implement with effect from 1 July. In connection with rates and land tax, we have to set the values for the 1990-91 financial year. In connection with rates, our municipal finances have relied far more on borrowings in the ACT than is the practice in local government generally across Australia. The Alliance Government is committed to keeping our borrowings to no more than 50 per cent of capital expenditure. That is in our policy statement and we will live with it. To achieve this and to provide the scope to maintain a high level of municipal services, rates will rise by 16.6 per cent in 1990-91, an increase in real terms of 9.6 per cent. With this rating level, average household rates will be no more than on a par with the Australian average.
There will be no across-the-board cuts in municipal services. While economies will be sought, they will be the result of specific decisions, not cuts by stealth as were imposed last year under the Labor Government that left Canberra with long grass and other obvious signs of neglect. The Government will also use the increased rate revenue to respond to the waste recycling proposals recommended by the Standing Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment recently.
Mr Berry: Like closing the Ainslie Transfer Station. That was a brilliant move!
MR KAINE: If you want to know where we are going to raise extra revenues, why not just sit and listen and I will tell you.
Land tax in the ACT is well below State levels. I well appreciate the difficulties facing business in the present economic climate. As I said before, if I could reduce their tax burden, I would. However, given the financial burdens placed on us by the Commonwealth, the Government has no option but to raise the land tax rate for commercial property. Being conscious of the additional burden that this will place on business, particularly retail tenants, we will raise the rate by only 0.25 per cent - from 0.75 per cent of unimproved capital value to 1 per cent. This rate will still be well below rates in other parts of Australia.
I come to the question of X-rated videos that Mr Stevenson was so interested in earlier. X-rated videos will now be taxed. Many members of this Government, including me, would prefer to see these videos banned. The Assembly has twice rejected legislation that would have restricted distribution of such material or that would have banned it. I see no likelihood that the Assembly will change its views on that matter in the foreseeable future. We will therefore tax these videos at the high rate of 40 per cent of wholesale revenue - double the rate proposed by the
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