Page 838 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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which says that it would be politically and socially unjust to impose a GST on domestic rates, as was done in New Zealand. Of course, that is exactly what is happening under the regime of taxation that is being proposed by ACTEW and supported by Mr Connolly and the Labor Party.
I need to indicate some differences with Ms Szuty. In a wonderful little phrase, she said that she favours the taxation of indulgence over necessity. There is a very simple response to that in letters to the editor in the paper today which is well worth reading. Under the heading "Three flushes, then pay extra", a very well thought out letter from Paul Cunneen of Scullin points out that, using ACTEW's figures, you would be allowed three flushes of the toilet per day and that is it, unless you happen to have a big family. If you have a big family that number actually reduces, which may be resolved by bigger families simply not flushing the toilet between uses. That will be one method of getting around it. We will have to have a meeting at my place to decide whether we want to risk our health in that way or not. Those are the sorts of issues that are raised in the letter.
It was interesting that Ms Szuty then went on to say that the most disadvantaged sections of our society are those who spend most on electricity. That was in conflict with what she had originally said in terms of indulgence over necessity. I think that what we have is a socially unjust flat rate tax that should be rejected.
Mr Connolly: We have always had this basis of rating.
MR MOORE: Mr Connolly says that we have always had this normal way of rating. What I am talking about, and this is why I am inclined to reject the tax, is that this taxation method has been used over the past few years to inject money directly into the budget rather than to pay for the services. So that is the first step in ensuring social equity in this area.
What we are talking about is removing that $19m injection from ACTEW into the budget, because that is what you are doing. The Government has talked about environmental charges. It has justified the sewerage rises by saying, "We are going to have some environmental charges". We use the term "environmental charge" in the same way as we used to use the word "safety". If we ever wanted to get things through the board in the schools I used to teach at, or when I was on school boards and wanted to ensure that something would go through, somebody wrote the word "safety" on the document. If the document had the word "safety" somewhere on it, it was sure to go through the board; there was no question about it.
There is the same sort of argument here. Mr Connolly thinks that Canberra people are going to have the wool pulled over their eyes because he is going to call this an environmental levy, not a tax. A new term for a tax is an environmental levy, so everybody will say, "Okay, if it is for the environment we will let it go ahead. There is no problem about it". He is trying to dress up the charges in relation to sewerage because in that way we can improve the Lower Molonglo sewage treatment works. The Lower Molonglo sewage treatment works can be improved in another way. Instead of taking the $19m or $25m or $30m or whatever it is in the budget, allow that to build in ACTEW so that they can make allowance within the charges that have been made to take care of the environmental issues; so that they can make projections over the next few years as to what their needs are.
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