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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2260 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I think, as we go into an election, both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, in particular, are going to have to be able to demonstrate to the people of Canberra that they are going to be responsible, not only in saying that they can make cuts to the Public Service, if indeed they can find spots to do it - if they want to use that line, they should identify where they are going to make such cuts, because I think that the Public Service in the ACT is really suffering because of their cuts - but also in saying how they are going to manage to balance the budget and how they are going to look at revenue. These are critical issues that people who wish to vote for responsible members of the Assembly and a responsible government or alternative government ought to take into account.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.26), in reply: Mr Speaker, I thank members of the Assembly for their support for this Bill. I agree that it has taken a long time to get a Rates and Land Tax Bill on the table in this Assembly. I have to say that the preferred position of this Government was to continue with a CPI increase. We believed that that was something that the people of Canberra could have relied on. A 1.75 per cent increase this year would have been significantly better than some of the very large increases - and the not so large increases, shall we say - that some suburbs have seen. I was interested in Mr Moore's comments about fairness, equity, accountability and so on.

It is interesting for me to note that the Labor Party appears to be letterbox dropping those suburbs that have had reductions in their rates, suggesting that it is their responsibility; that they actually own this rates system. I have to tell you that it is very tempting to letterbox drop the suburbs that have gone up and say, "Mr Whitecross owns this system. It is not our system. We would have gone to a 1.75 per cent increase, something everyone could cope with". But I think, if you are going to own a system - and we do that in government all the time - you have to own both ends of it, Mr Speaker; you have to own both the reductions and the increases. But it is a very interesting approach, shall we say, by those opposite and not necessarily based on fairness, equity or honesty, Mr Speaker.

I do not believe that there is a perfect rating system. All of the input we have had into this whole approach to come up with a new rating system has shown that there is probably no perfect system. Equally, I do not believe that the system we have on the table now is as good as our preferred system; but I believe that it is a damned sight better than the system we had before. Mr Speaker, if the old system, which was based solely on unimproved capital values, had been used for 1997-98 the variations between this year's and last year's bills would have been much larger for many Canberrans - not for all Canberrans, but for many. We set out on this track of trying to find a better rating system after we saw the huge variations under the Follett Government.

It was interesting to me to hear Mr Whitecross say, "I own this system. It has taken us a long time to get the Government to accept this new rating system". Mr Speaker, we have been in government for two years. They were in government for five years. What does that tell you about our new rating system? If two years was too long for Mr Whitecross, why did the previous Government take five years and still not change it?

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