Page 1899 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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a service. There needs to be some sort of clear separation, in their submission, and I tend to agree with that. They also talk about the use of income and how that should be determined as a basis for calculating concessional entitlement.
Without going into the figures and calculations that they use, that seems to me to be an eminently sensible proposal because it ensures that the people at the bottom end of town get a reasonable benefit in the form of concessions, and people at the very top end of town do not get a concession or may not get a concession on something which they can afford to pay anyway.
The issue really is the introduction of formulas which are not regressive in the way they apply concessions to the community. I think there is one way of addressing the issue which could be looked at by the Government. I am disappointed that they have not looked at it as a result of the letter from the Council of Social Service, because it is a serious proposal. I suspect that they will be extremely disappointed that some of their submissions have not been considered, as they have not been reflected in the Bill that has been put forward by the Government.
A suggestion they offer is that the concession ought to be calculated at a given level - some hundreds of dollars - and ought to be indexed. It ought to be subject to a means test. Then the people in receipt of the concession can spend the concession how they like, which again seems to be a sensible suggestion. Perhaps they might like to spend it all on their rates; they might like to spend it on bus travel if they have not got a car; or they might like to use it to subsidise their car registration if they happen to have one, or their electricity account, or whatever. That seems to me to be a sensible suggestion too. I think the Government ought to look at an all-embracing proposal rather than one which goes to individual issues, as this one has done. The Government ought to guard against regressive concession proposals and ought to make sure that the people at the bottom end of town do as well as those at the top.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (11.42): Mr Speaker, I am well aware of the correspondence that Mr Berry is referring to. He has addressed the issue of concessions on a broad base. There is no question that that is an issue that needs to be addressed and that we will be facing in the future. But the issue at hand here, Mr Speaker, is that of providing a rebate on rates.
Mr Berry: That is a concession, though.
MR DUBY: Yes. I think, to be honest, that the arguments that Mr Berry has raised are just a little bit woolly. What he is proposing is that there should be a means test imposed on that eligibility for a rates rebate - - -
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