Page 1039 - Week 04 - Thursday, 18 June 1992
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Mr Connolly: It was up $7m when you were running the show.
MR KAINE: You are the Government; you have had it for a year. It is blowing out. What are you going to do to fix it? Platitudes are not enough.
Mr Connolly: No, it is not; it is coming back. It was blowing out when you were running it.
MR KAINE: It is very interesting. I can see that Mr Connolly is very sensitive about this. He knows that he is on thin ice. Platitudes will not do it, Mr Connolly.
Mr Lamont: Mr Kaine, is this speech not already tabled in Hansard through the ACIL report?
MR KAINE: No, I do not know anything about an ACIL report. I have not seen an ACIL report; I know nothing of it.
I am delighted that at last the Chief Minister has embraced the concept of privatisation, at least in connection with land and buildings "not benefiting the community". But she cannot just stop at looking at the usefulness of various depots located throughout the city. They are a minor part of possible redundancies. Other more valuable redundant assets should be identified for disposal, and in this connection dare I suggest that the future of the Acton Peninsula and the Kingston foreshores as prime examples in today's world cannot be ignored. What is the Government going to do about them? Is it going to let them sit there and fall apart at the seams?
I now turn to the place of urban renewal in the "strategy". The Chief Minister talks about urban renewal, yet this is the same Chief Minister who advocates a return to the dark days of public sector land development, the same Chief Minister who by knee-jerk reaction during the election campaign arbitrarily removed from the draft Territory Plan all those areas identified not for urban infill but for consideration for urban infill. Now in our budget strategy statement we talk about the place of urban renewal. Where does she stand and what are her proposals?
I have mentioned a lot of concerns, but the most worrying part of this budget strategy so far as the community is concerned must be where the additional revenue is to come from. Again, this subject is skated over by the Chief Minister. A cursory review of the possible sources of increased revenue suggests the direction that the Government might take. None of these options will be particularly attractive to people, whether in business or as private taxpayers. They include a consideration of increases in general rates, water and sewerage rates and charges for electricity already having been earmarked for very significant increases. They include payroll and land tax increases, retention of or even an increase in the petrol tax, vehicle registration charges, financial institutions duty, liquor and cigarette taxes, and taxes on gambling, to name but a few. They are the obvious ones.
New South Wales has already upped the franchise tax on tobacco; I am sure that this Government just cannot resist matching that. The iniquitous land tax which attracted so much attention a year ago must be very attractive when it is a quarter of a per cent less than applies in New South Wales also. Those people who were
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