Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2036 ..

Mr Moore: That is the solution you are supposed to have been looking for over the last 18 months.

MRS CARNELL: Yes, absolutely. The point I am making is that the system that we inherited was simply unfair. We had huge variations for residential ratepayers over any particular year. Fascinatingly, those rates were tied not only to the unimproved capital value of properties, they were tied to such things as what was happening in the commercial property market at the time. As we also know, the previous Government determined the macro-increase they needed in any one particular year. I think it was 5 per cent in the last Follett budget, and they basically just made the formula work underneath that 5 per cent. In other words, there was a multiplying factor that basically brought people's rates up to what the Government needed in macro terms. It is not all that dissimilar, except that what this approach does is ensure that people do not end up with 60 per cent increases over any particular year, do not end up with a 30 per cent increase in rates over a three-year period and do not have their residential rates tied specifically to what is happening in the commercial market.

Those in this place, Mr Moore included, have argued in the past that that system was simply unfair. It created a lack of confidence in the market. It created a situation where people could end up being priced out of their homes, and that was really what was happening. We have a unique situation in Canberra. A lot of elderly people, fixed income superannuants, have lived in their homes in the inner north and inner south of Canberra for many years. If we have a rating system that is totally reliant on, or totally tied to, unimproved capital value, we are going to price those people out of their homes as their areas become subject to redevelopment. People in three-bedroom ex-government houses can end up one block away from multimillion dollar redevelopments. What would that do to their rates? It would put them through the ceiling, simply because of the way unimproved capital values were sorted out. Is that fair, Mr Speaker? In our view, on this side of the house, it is not fair.

We do not want a situation where rates are not predictable. We do not want a situation where people open their rates bill every year in absolute fear and trepidation about whether they are going to be able to afford to stay in their homes for another year, particularly fixed income superannuants, older Canberrans. We want a situation that is not like that, and certainly it is not easy to find, Mr Speaker. As I said in my presentation speech, there are a number of options which we are currently looking at. They include using the improved capital value, having a percentage of our rates totally aligned to charges for services that we get, and so on.

This Government has certainly made it clear that we are still looking at the whole issue of coming up with a fairer rating system. This year the market is not growing. Unfortunately, it is fairly depressed and therefore prices are stagnant. We are not talking about a time when, as we have seen in the past, prices are going through the roof in some suburbs. The reality is that right now nothing much is happening in the market at all. That means that people in Canberra paying an extra 3 per cent on top of the average rates bill of about $600 last year will pay an extra $18 on average in the coming year. I believe that everybody, given an opportunity to plan ahead, is in a position to pay that. By contrast, if some people were to get 40 per cent increases, they simply may not be able to pay.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .