Page 2339 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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gave that particular numbers of dollars were required to run services when the Follett Government sought increases in rates or charges. I wonder what justification was provided then.
Ms Follett: We used the CPI.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, you did not indicate the CPI.
Mr Duby: They upped the value of everything.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, that is right. That is hardly to be sustained, Mr Speaker. Ms Follett made no justification whatever when she introduced, for example, the increases in payroll tax. She provided no evidence of what the need for that was. She said that she felt it was a requirement of her Government that she have more money in that area. It was as simple as that.
Ms Follett and her former Government are obviously severely out of touch with what people out in the community are saying. From all the meetings I have been to in the last few weeks - and Ms Follett has been to some of those as well - I gained the very strong impression from those that I have spoken to and those that have spoken to me that there is a belief that rates ought to increase in this Territory, or at least that government revenues ought to increase, to prevent too many public services being threatened with cutback. That is precisely what this Government is doing. We are attacking the problem of diminishing resources from both ends; that is, we are looking at the expenditure of government and at the revenue of government.
These people opposite, of course, have no regard for the realities that are imposed on a government. They are quite happy to say, "We oppose any rate increases, we oppose any increases in taxes or charges, but we also oppose any cuts to public services". That is a position that comes entirely from being in opposition. It is a position that no government can possibly sustain. It was not even a position that they sustained when they were in government. They themselves reduced services and increased taxation. So their hypocrisy on this matter ought to be clearly exposed.
I think it is very fair for us to ask exactly what solution the Labor Party is offering to the ACT's financial problems. What solution is it offering? It is saying, "Trust us to find some solution and everything will be all right. When we come into government, whenever it might be" - it is probably the year 2020 but they think it is 1992 - "somehow we will be able to sort these problems out". Labor members have not indicated one single way in which they will do that. They have vaguely alluded to increased taxes on business but they have not been brave enough to spell that out, so we do not know exactly what that means. We have had all sorts of helpful suggestions
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