Page 1898 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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which I hope to do one day. I do not think it would be socially equitable for persons who are in very fortuitous circumstances to be able to claim as a subsidy from the ACT taxpayer a rebate of one-half of the rates payable.
Therefore, there is no current intention whatsoever to extend a rebate of rates to all persons in receipt of a seniors card. I would imagine that most persons in receipt of a seniors card would be in receipt of a pension of some kind and, of those receiving a pension, most, I think, would be eligible to qualify for this rebate. Accordingly, that is a good thing.
I thank members for the support that they have given to this Bill. It is a very important Bill. It is something that this Government can be proud of in terms of increasing benefits to a disadvantaged group of members of our community. The proposed amendments provide improved services for ACT pensioners and will lead to increased efficiency in the Revenue Office, whilst reducing the administrative costs.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail Stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MR BERRY (11.37): I rise again to labour the basic point that I raised when I first spoke. It seems that Mr Duby has not picked up that issue as well as I would have liked. The real issue is the regressive nature of the formula which has been used for the application of the benefit, if I can call it that. As I said earlier, the people at the bottom end of town do not do as well as they might under some other sort of proposition. I note, Mr Speaker, that the ACT Council of Social Service wrote to Mr Duby on 27 February 1990 about the issue of concessions and some alternative proposals that might be considered by the Government in dealing with the provision of concessions to members of the community.
It seems that the Government has not taken much notice of the council's position on this matter, which it has set out very clearly in the letter to which I have referred. The system proposed by the council was that the amount of redistribution of income through the concessional system should be continued at the present expenditure levels, and that that ought to be indexed for inflation.
They make a number of points. One very important one is that concessions ought to be separated from services. They give an example of that: A reduced car registration is a concession, but the supply of a kidney dialysis machine is
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