Page 3945 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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Madam Speaker, it could involve having rates inspectors going around to inspect your property, every time you put on an en suite bathroom, as Mr Berry has just done, added an extra room or otherwise beautified or added to the value of your property. It would be an extremely cumbersome and expensive method to implement. Of course, for the ratepayers, every time you added a deck or put a spa in your backyard, or whatever you do with them, your rates would go up. I am not sure that that would be greeted with universal acclaim in our community.
Madam Speaker, the use of improved values results in a very much larger range of values and, therefore, a very much greater disparity in the amount of rates assessed as between properties. It is fair to say that they are also subject to the same influences that cause unimproved values to increase and, at times, to increase by quite large amounts. By using this method, you would not get the benefit that Mrs Carnell has ascribed - the benefit of not having sudden increases.
Madam Speaker, I am concerned also that the use of improved values would discourage development and improvement of properties. We could see property owners perhaps sitting on their properties and not improving them to the extent that the community would wish to see, simply so that it accumulates a kind of a capital gain but minimises their own rates. It is my view that that kind of underimprovement of property could well change the character of Canberra and, certainly, the character of our suburbs. Madam Speaker, it could have an effect on the ACT's economy. If there were properties that were underimproved and, as a result, our rates revenue were to fall, then that would have an impact on the Territory's economy. But the top of Mrs Carnell's head was not big enough to contain those kinds of ideas, and I am putting them forward for her consideration.
One issue with respect to the use of improved values that ought to be of concern to the Liberals opposite is the fact that it would probably have a disproportionate impact on the commercial sector, because the improvements on commercial land are usually very much greater than the improvements on residential land. Therefore, if you were to value land on the basis of improvements only, the commercial sector would be quite severely disadvantaged. Madam Speaker, in my view, that would be a disincentive for business to locate or relocate in the ACT. If you believe some of the Liberal rhetoric, they wish to provide incentives for business to locate in the ACT. It is just another example, I think, of the off-the-top-of-the-head assessment not really coming up with a good idea and, certainly, not being consistent with any of the other ideas that come from the same source.
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