Page 2117 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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Mr Cornwell: What is the date of the match?
MR CONNOLLY: The date of the match is 9 November. Given the additional sitting day next week, we have 15 sitting days in which this determination may be disallowed, or members may seek to give additional relaxation to the tobacco lobby.
SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION
Paper
MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, pursuant to section 6 of the Subordinate Laws Act 1989, I present determination No. 43 of 1994, including an explanatory statement, which is an exemption from the application of the Building Code made under the Building Act and gazetted in Gazette No. S113 dated 15 June 1994.
MADAM SPEAKER: I believe that it is now the wish of the Assembly to suspend for an hour and to resume at 7 o'clock this evening.
Sitting suspended from 6.03 to 7.00 pm
RATES AND LAND TAX (AMENDMENT) BILL 1994
Debate resumed from 14 June 1994, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (7.00): This Bill, on the face of it, is fairly innocuous, and the Liberal Party in opposition supports it; but I think there are some aspects of the rating system and the proposal put to us in this Bill that deserve some comment. It is very easy to say to the community, "We are increasing rates at 2.5 per cent, and that is consistent with the CPI". On the face of it, that is the fact of it.
However, individual ratepayers will discover, if they look at their rates bill, that that 2.5 per cent looks a bit odd. There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, the Chief Minister, when tabling this Bill, pointed out that, although the average increase is 2.5 per cent, residential ratepayers are incurring an overall increase of 3.7 per cent, while commercial property holders will see across the board, on average, a 4.4 per cent reduction. So even at that rate, although there is an average residential property increase of 3.7 per cent, and that in itself is greater than the CPI, individual ratepayers within that will see great fluctuations around that average. There will be many people who will say, and rightly, "What is this 2.5 per cent rates increase?". Even if you look only at the matter put to us in this Bill, which has to do simply with establishing the rate in the dollar of unimproved capital value that is used to determine the ultimate amount of rates any individual has to pay, there are some concerns about that.
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