Page 831 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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Mr Kaine: $25m?
MR MOORE: $25m from the Leader of the Opposition. Do I have any advance on $25m?
Mr Humphries: $30m.
MR MOORE: $30m. It is going your way. Who knows what it is going to be? We even heard Mr Connolly today give a little indication: 1.6 per cent on an investment of $1.2 billion is nothing; it is a minimal amount. Five per cent would be more appropriate. We had $30m over here. Five per cent is going a bit higher.
We have an opportunity to say no. We do not want a flat rate tax. It is an inequitable tax. It is a backdoor tax. What we want is a much more equitable way of dealing with taxation, of raising money for the people of Canberra, so that we can face our responsibility for police, health, education, community services, roads, schools - the lot.
That responsibility is about social justice. Our services are not about good business. One of the problems with the way the Liberals present things is that they think everything must be done as good business. It is appropriate that departments run as efficiently as possible; but they ought not to run as businesses, because they are not designed as businesses. What we are running are services. The provision of electricity and water is a service. ACTEW is not in competition with anybody else. It is a monopoly. It provides a service. When its fees go up, nobody can do anything about it. Those households with large families or with a larger group living there are severely disadvantaged, particularly in terms of water and electricity.
The impoverished are also disadvantaged. What will happen to them? Later on, I understand, we are going to be looking at some legislation on guaranteed essential services, and that is important. The last thing we need in Canberra is to have members of our society - this is especially relevant in view of the past few days - not wanting to turn on the electricity to get warm, feeling that it is better to be cold, because they cannot afford to be warm. That is what we are talking about when we are talking about a flat rate tax. Leave it alone.
MR DE DOMENICO (4.13): Madam Speaker, I too rise with pleasure to speak on this MPI. One of those statements that I think ought to be in our minds as members of this Assembly is that Canberra ratepayers and taxpayers deserve, and should demand, value for every dollar they are asked to pay. Mr Connolly stood up here and said, "Everything is hunky-dory at ACTEW. We are fantastic; we are fabulous". As Mr Moore suggested, he used figures all over the place. He does not realise that ACTEW does not generate its own electricity, as other utilities of this nature do.
He has not told us that every other State government, of every political persuasion, has gone down the corporatisation and even privatisation track. In fact, as Mr Connolly is aware, in Victoria Mrs Kirner, who is not from the same faction as Mr Connolly but is from the same political party, has gone down the track of selling the State Bank of Victoria - a well-known institution to people who come from Victoria and others. So Mr Connolly would not be reinventing the wheel if he took ACTEW down the corporatisation track.
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