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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 1616 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

they do not pay any insurance at all. Quite a number of people rent their homes, but they do not rent them from a commercial enterprise so they are not going to pay it either. We will not have everybody in this town contributing to this particular insurance levy, and that makes it inequitable.

Mr Humphries: So what is the alternative?

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, it is not my job to develop the Government's policy. Government members opposite are paid a 16 times greater salary than I am and they purport to have a much greater capacity for intellectual thought and wit than I do. They can come up with them. It is my job to sit here and draw the flaws to their attention, which is what I am trying to do.

This Insurance Levy Bill is unfair on families, particularly larger ones, and pensioners. The example given just a minute ago was of people who live in homes worth a million dollars. I might suggest that, instead of having a clock collection, some people could have a pharmacy collection. They would have a barrel of money from which they could pay. As for the people in Banks, for example - the same example quoted - I suggest to you that they cannot pay the extra amount of this levy. They are scratching. The people in Gungahlin are scratching. The people who live in Red Hill and the people who have pharmacies are not scratching. The Government says this is equitable because people who own their homes can do it. I do not believe it. The people who live in flats and who are renting from the private market have this sort of thing passed on to them. They cannot afford it. To suggest that they can is not only wrong; it is a blatant insult to them.

Mr Speaker, this tax will not only do what I have mentioned; it will also discourage a lot of ACT residents from insuring their homes. That will have two effects. The first effect will be that their target of $10m will not be achieved. The second thing is that it will encourage people to take a risk - the people in this community who can ill afford to take the risk. Every now and again a house burns down in this town and we see people in abject misery. Their lives have been devastated because their houses and all their belongings are gone. Why should we encourage those people to take that risk because they cannot afford it? Mr Speaker, I reject absolutely the premise that we should be encouraging that to happen.

In addition, it is not a choice thing. New home buyers can ill afford to do anything. They have enough trouble paying for their registration increases, their zonal fares under the new system and all of this sort of stuff without having this thing imposed on them. If you have a mortgage you are obliged at law to insure your home, so you have no choice at all. Bang. You are going to have to pay it. End of story. No argument. You cannot even take the risk. You just have to do it. So if you are a mortgage holder you are gone. You just have to do it.

I suggest that the example of people who are sitting in million-dollar houses and with clock collections and pharmacy collections is just absolute nonsense. Most of the people in this town have significant mortgages. They take up a significant piece of their income and they can ill afford to have this tax imposed upon them.

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