Page 1900 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 14 June 1994
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RATES AND LAND RENT (RELIEF) (AMENDMENT) BILL 1994
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.29), by leave: I present the Rates and Land Rent (Relief)(Amendment) Bill 1994.
Title read by Clerk.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This Bill amends the Rates and Land Rent (Relief) Act 1970. The Act provides for the deferment and remission of rates and land rent and includes, in Part III of the Act, a rates rebate scheme. The rebate scheme is administered by the Commissioner for ACT Revenue and, in respect of water and sewerage rates, by the chief executive officer of ACT Electricity and Water.
From 1 April 1993 Commonwealth fringe benefits were extended to some 374,000 Social Security and Veterans' Affairs pensioners and older long-term allowees and beneficiaries 60 years of age or over who have been in receipt of income support for 12 months or longer. The Department of Social Security and the Department of Veterans' Affairs are issuing pensioner concessions cards to this group of pensioners and all other eligible pensioners who were previously in receipt of a pensioner health benefit card. The Commonwealth has agreed to partially compensate the State and Territory governments to meet the additional cost of providing benefits to pensioners in the extended pensioner base, approximately 3,300 of whom are ACT residents. The Bill therefore amends the Act to take account of the extended pensioner base.
All pensioners who now hold a Commonwealth pensioner concessions card and to whom a pension is being paid by the Department of Social Security or the Department of Veterans' Affairs are eligible to apply for rebate and deferment benefits on land, water and sewerage rates. Madam Speaker, in the past pensioners could either receive a rebate and pay the remainder of their rates or defer the whole of their rates. They could not do both. The Government recognises that this inflexibility is unfair, and therefore this Bill allows an eligible person to receive a rebate and then defer a part or all of their remaining rates. The benefit of this approach is obvious, as it will assist those pensioners who, for whatever reason, either want to or need to defer all or part of their rates. The decision is entirely theirs and will not be influenced by inflexible legislative rules. Additionally, to avoid inconvenience to pensioners, once an application for a rates deferment has been made it can continue in subsequent years unless circumstances change or deferment is no longer necessary.
The Bill also takes account of the recent amendments to the ACT water and sewerage rate structure to come into effect from 1 July 1994. The new charges reduce the basic fee for water from $216 to $130, but allow water usage to be charged on a per kilolitre basis from the first kilolitre. Under these new arrangements the benefits arising from a 50 per cent rebate received by pensioners would have been significantly eroded.
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