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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 581 ..

MR HUMPHRIES

exceptions, would insure either the building itself or the contents. It is, in fact, a requirement of any mortgagor that the mortgagee take out insurance. I should think that most houses in the ACT are subject to a mortgage of one sort or another, so every householder would be a mortgagee and therefore would be an insurance premium payer. Anybody with a car that is not particularly old would be in the same position. Anybody who is renting but has goods and chattels they want to protect through an insurance policy is likely to be paying insurance. It would not be at all surprising or, I think, to be doubted that there would be well over 100,000 people in the ACT who would be paying insurance policies.

Mr Wood: What are you bothered for?

MR HUMPHRIES: You are still here, Mr Wood. I appreciate that fact. Mr Speaker, what we have here is the proposition that if you transfer the emergency services levy from insurance policy-holders to ratepayers you are moving from a base which is, I suspect, much larger than 100,000 people to a base of only 100,000 people. What will you do by doing that? What you will do is, in the case of at least some people who are ratepayers in this Territory, substantially increase the amount per capita they have to pay to meet that $10m target.

Do members seriously want that? Before members of the Labor Party go out to the next election and promise to change the basis on which this levy is worked so as to transfer it onto the shoulders of some other people they should be careful about what they transfer it to because, with very few exceptions, I cannot think of any population base in the Territory which is broader than those who have insurance policies. Ratepayers are certainly not a broader base than that; they are a narrower base than that. Be careful before you rush into that particular place.

Mr Speaker, I will conclude my remarks by just saying that I think that in this debate we need to be specific and we need to be courageous about how we are going to deal with addressing the ACT's budgetary problems. It is simply not good enough to condemn every new tax rise, to condemn every expenditure reduction, to condemn every use of accounting principles to deal with some cash flow problem or ruse - to renounce those sorts of things, either directly or by implication - and then wipe your hands of any constructive solution to the problem. There is a need for us to address these issues collectively. The Labor Party one day will be back in government on this side of the chamber. If they refuse to be constructive about this exercise, they will find it very hard to appeal for a constructive approach by the Assembly to their problems when they are in government. Mr Speaker, we have yet to see whether the short-term interest in scoring political points outweighs the longer-term interest in our community, collectively, addressing what is a massive problem for us all, that is, making our way of life in this Territory sustainable into the future.

Debate interrupted.

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