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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1340 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The first issue is the equity of subsidising home owners compared to other more financially disadvantaged groups in the community. The incidence of poverty among elderly outright home owners is relatively low compared to other sectors of the community. In the ACT, outright home owners on social security pensions or benefits do not feature in the bottom 30 per cent of after-housing incomes.

The second issue is that rates rebates are also regressive - that is, they provide greater benefit to those living in more valuable properties and no benefit to those living in private rental housing, the elderly unemployed or low income superannuants. Concession schemes operate unfairly. Asset rich and income poor people are required presently to pay half the rates, thereby depleting their low level of income for present living costs. A deferral scheme leaves the pensioner with the whole of their present income intact. Under the present scheme of public subsidy on rates concessions, this is for the benefit of the beneficiaries of the estate of the pensioner, not the pensioner himself or herself. Thus relatively affluent children obtain the benefits of publicly subsidised untaxed capital gains windfalls.

I also regret that Mrs Carnell does not pick up more from ACTCOSS, but I would not accept Mr Whitecross's argument that because Mrs Carnell has picked up only one we should reject the arguments. That is a silly argument, I would say. I think we should be very pleased that Mrs Carnell has picked up this proposal and should encourage her to do more of it.

The Government, in fact, has not removed the concession completely. It has only capped it at $250, and it also applies only to new pensioners, not existing pensioners. The initial revenue impact is not very large, but over time it will grow. The Greens agree that the cap on concessions is probably actually more equitable than a 50 per cent rebate. A lower valued property, with rates of say $500, would still attract the same concession as it would now, but a higher valued property will now have a reduced rebate. While the argument about asset rich and income poor people is valid, the option of deferral remains. All members of this place are aware that many pensioners do not use a deferral scheme. The Government has tried to improve the process of deferring rates in this Bill.

We also support the final part of the Bill which revokes the notional values in the Kingston-Griffith area. This was a recommendation of the Stein report. For the reasons I have outlined, we will be supporting this Bill and not Mr Whitecross's amendments.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (6.22): Mr Speaker, in a perfect world I expect we would all like to have a situation where all pensioners could receive maximum rebates. I expect, preferably, that we would like to see a situation in our community where people on lower incomes did not pay any rates at all. In a perfect world that would be the case. The reality, though, Mr Speaker, is that it is not possible - funny about that - because we have to pay for things such as health, education, police and all of those sorts of things.

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