Page 2331 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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Mr Speaker, you might ask yourself why Mr Duby proposes to raise the rates by a very large hike at this time, and I can only conclude that he is doing it for sheer political opportunism. Mr Duby is well aware that at the next budget he will be only six months or so away from an election and, frankly, the raising of the rates by a hike like this, within six months of an election, he would find totally politically unpalatable. So I believe this very large increase that he is proposing is a cynical act, but it is typical of him. He has taken a number of cynical acts since we have all come to know him. I think that by raising the rates by 16 per cent, which is a very large rise indeed, he is hitting hardest those people in the community who are least able to afford it.
I call on the Assembly to show some integrity in this matter. I am not opposing any increase in rates; I am a realist in that matter. I realise that municipal service charges and costs do not remain static; they move and so the rates must move. But he has advanced no reasons whatsoever why that movement should be twice the CPI rate. We are forced to conclude that he is doing it to put himself at an electoral advantage next year.
I find that kind of cynical behaviour totally unpalatable. I believe that members of the Government who do have some integrity will also find it unpalatable, and I commend my amendments to them. They do impose an increase in rates, but a reasonable increase that is in line with inflation. It gives me no joy whatsoever to be proposing any increase in the rates, but I think that this increase that I have put forward by way of my amendments is an acceptable level, and I call upon all members of the Assembly to support the amendments.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (5.05): Mr Speaker, as usual we hear nothing but economic doubletalk from the Leader of the Opposition. How she can claim that the Alliance Government, and me in particular, are going to obtain an electoral advantage out of raising rates above the CPI is beyond me. Only the Machiavellian minds of members of the Labor Party would come out with something like that. It is clearly ludicrous. The simple fact is that the economic circumstances that this Territory finds itself in demand that sacrifices be made, and we believe that this is the appropriate and responsible response to the circumstances that we are in - that rates will have to be increased. Unfortunately, as has been recognised by numerous authorities who have examined the financial accounts of the Territory, the charges generally are required to be raised.
Strangely enough, in her argument against the raising of the rates above the CPI, Ms Follett seems to take it for granted that, if we do not raise them this year, there is no doubt that they will have to be raised next year. That was the sort of response we had from the Labor Opposition
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