Page 1894 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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MR BERRY (11.22): I have just a few short comments to make. It is a good Bill and it is about helping those people who are in circumstances which we will all find ourselves in one day, I trust. There is one inadequacy, if I could call it that, in the Bill - "inequity", perhaps, is a better word - which I think has not been addressed and which needs to be on the record. It seems to me that the less well off, that is, somebody who has a property of low value, would not do as well out of the rebate system as somebody who has a property of very high rateable value. I would like to draw that to the attention of the Government and have it on the record that there is an inequity. Even though the Labor Party supports the overall thrust of the Bill, it would have preferred some sort of arrangement whereby those at the bottom of town were able to do as well as those at the top of town.
MR JENSEN (11.23): Mr Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to comment briefly on this Bill. It continues and updates the provision of a rebate to those residents of Canberra, and their eligible dependants, who have served their country and are eligible for a pension under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 of the Commonwealth, particularly those to whom section 27 of the Commonwealth Act applies - those in receipt of a pension by virtue of a war-caused injury or war-caused disease. The ACT Bill uses the same principles applied by the Commonwealth for identifying those service pensioners who are not eligible for a service pension by virtue of the means test applied by section 82 of the Commonwealth Veterans' Entitlements Act. Obviously any changes to that Act, by the way the legislation is written, as I understand it, will mean that that will be reflected in any changes to entitlement in the ACT.
Mr Speaker, also, as we are aware, there are often occasions when service men and women and their dependants are at odds with the administrators of the Commonwealth Veterans' Entitlements Act and their rulings in relation to eligibility for a pension. Because such rulings would have an effect on their ability to obtain a rebate under the Rates and Land Rent (Relief) Act, I think it is appropriate that I indicate publicly that I would be happy to make representations on behalf of those veterans and their dependants who feel that they have been disadvantaged because of the effect that it will have on their ability to receive rebates under the ACT legislation.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (11.25), in reply: Mr Speaker, the Land Rent and Rates (Deferment and Remission) Act 1970 provides relief from the payment of land rent and rates. The Act includes provisions for a rates rebate scheme. The scheme entitles an eligible person to a 50 per cent rebate - a quite substantial
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