Page 2340 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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from the Federal members, who say, "Reorder your priorities", or, "Think again about what you should be doing", and things like that. It really does not add up, Mr Speaker. We cannot rely on that kind of advice. We have got to make some hard decisions, and that is what this Government is doing in this Bill.
MRS GRASSBY (5.43): Mr Speaker, the Liberal Party again has misled the electorate by this increase of 16 per cent, an enormous hike. The Labor Party did say charges would go up, but at CPI figures. The figure of 16 per cent is well above CPI figures. The fact is that they are going to learn that some of their friends who live in Forrest and the areas where those opposite think they have the vote will be paying an extra $1,000 on their rates and taxes. Unfortunately, though, there are not a lot of them. The people who are going to be hurt are the people in the outlying suburbs who will find their rates and taxes going up by $200 and $300 a year. That might not seem very much to people sitting in this house, but if you have a mortgage and you are barely meeting your mortgage repayments with the interest rates as they are today, then an extra $300 to $400 a year will make payments out of their pay-packets unbearable. People will not be able to meet these. An increase of 16 per cent is an enormous hike, Mr Speaker. If it were 10 per cent I could understand it, but not 16 per cent. It is the little people - and there are a lot of them in Canberra - who will be hurt by this Bill. And will it do any harm to the big people? Yes, it will.
They will find at the next election that the people from whom the Liberal Party normally get a vote - people from Red Hill, Forrest and the new area of Griffith, who will suffer an enormous hike - will vote against these people because they promised them that they would not put up rates and taxes. Yet here they are putting them up 16 per cent. There is one person I know in Forrest whose rates and taxes will go up $1,000.
Mr Kaine: Well, their rates bills must be pretty heavy.
MRS GRASSBY: They are pretty heavy. They are the ones who realise what you are doing. You have not been talking to these people. They are very savage about it, and they are supposed to be your voters, not our voters. But it is our people out in the suburbs whom you are hurting who are already suffering and bleeding from paying large interest rates on housing mortgages. Now they are going to be hit with another $200, $300 or $400 in areas where they can barely afford it. Mr Speaker, I support Ms Follett's amendments on this and will vote for them because I find this provision absolutely horrifying. A 16 per cent hike is unbelievable.
MR MOORE (5.46): I rise to support Ms Follett's amendments. I have considered the matter carefully and it seems to me that, if you take Mr Humphries' argument about needing to raise revenue, the first step is to raise
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