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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 455 ..

MS TUCKER

Another revenue area that has environmental implications is waste disposal charges. I understand that the ACT is one of the few jurisdictions in Australia that do not separately identify waste collection charges in its household rates. This is seen as a way of making the cost of waste disposal more transparent to the public, and it provides scope for introducing economic incentives for reducing waste generation, for example, through the introduction of differential charges based on the amount of waste put out for collection. There are a range of systems in place in various parts of the world for charging by the amount of waste put out, which could be adopted in the ACT. It obviously has benefits for the Government in the long run as well if it has less requirement to get rid of the waste that is coming from householders in the ACT.

I am not in a position to work out the detail of how much extra revenue could be generated from the measures I have outlined; probably they would not significantly reduce the operating loss, but they are at least a start. We have been prepared to come out with these sorts of ideas. I think that is a discussion that we have to have. Obviously, there could be arguments against some of those proposals, and that is a discussion that I believe we have to have in the ACT in a way that is actually open and with people being prepared to listen. If we continue to just say, "Well, the Greens said that they would do this", "Labor said that they would do that" or "The Liberal Party said that they would do that", some political mileage is perhaps gained, but basically we are still ending up in a very unsustainable economic situation in the ACT. That is why we have asked that the Government does actually have a proper debate on revenue-raising options in the ACT and why we have supported ACTCOSS's call for such a debate, as well as a discussion on expenditure, which has to be part of the discussion.

On the question of asset sales: The Greens have always opposed the sale of essential services such as water, electricity transmission and public transport. For the non-essential services, we would only support their sale if a full social, environmental and economic cost-benefit analysis was undertaken that showed that the sale would have no effect on service standards now and into the future and would provide a positive economic return to the Government and the local community. The sale of physical assets such as buildings could only be supported if it is absolutely clear that the assets are no longer needed by the Government now or in the future. The sale and leaseback of assets is questionable, as this is really just a form of borrowing. As I have already said earlier in this speech, it is like taking out a mortgage. We would prefer that the Government was honest about its desire to borrow funds rather than try to hide behind these sale and leaseback arrangements.

In conclusion, I have no doubt that framing a budget is not easy. However, I do believe that there is scope for improving the ACT's financial position through well-targeted expenditure reallocations to the areas of greatest social need and the implementation of equitable and environmentally responsible revenue-raising measures. Many people in the community are concerned because they see social services decline as politicians embrace economic rationalism with almost religious fervour. They see an increasing gap developing between rich and poor. They see equity suffering and they see the consequent social disharmony increasing.

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