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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1875 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
price. That is what I was doing in the debate about low-alcohol beer. Right now I am raising the issue of equity in our society, which is also a legitimate concern and something worth bringing up in debate, and I will continue to do so. This GST payment is not about the redistribution of wealth within our society.
I have noticed Mr Moore chuckling and making interjections as well. I think that he does have some understanding of the issues of equity and the relationship between equity and health. We are talking about equity at this moment when we are talking about first home owners. In looking at the redistribution of wealth in our society, we know now as the research results are there clearly that a society that has a more equitable distribution of resources will have better health in the community. If Mr Moore is not aware of that research, I am happy to give it to him; but I did sense that he had some understanding of those issues. It would be very useful if we had this government acknowledging the inequity in our society a little bit more, instead of being quite so hysterical about the bottom line issues.
MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (9.16), in reply: I thank members for supporting the bill. Clearly, this bill is important because, of all the money that is going to be spent on programs in the coming year from the budget, this is the easiest to deliver because it is a program that comes paid for by the Commonwealth. Obviously, we are very pleased to be able to facilitate there being a first home owners scheme in the ACT, providing first home owners with a grant of $7,000-a flat $7,000 to each person who buys a home from 1 July this year.
I have seen the comments of the scrutiny of bills committee. I have prepared some amendments as a result of that committee's two responses to the bill and I commend them to the house for debate later.
Mr Speaker, let me make an important point about this scheme. It is a national scheme. I understand other Australian governments have now passed this legislation and we are among the last, if not the last, to put in place the first home owners scheme. We need to recognise that our flexibility to do our own thing in this arrangement is rather limited. The Commonwealth government is providing the ACT with $16 million or something in that order for first home owner grants in the course of 2000-01. It would be tempting to dramatically alter the conditions and perhaps relax the conditions for the making of these grants in the ACT, but we do not have that luxury, Mr Speaker, simply because it is not our money. It is the Commonwealth's money and we are obliged to deliver the Commonwealth's money in a uniform way across the country-
Mr Quinlan: It was your money in the budget blurb.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, I never said that it was our money. Mr Quinlan, the press release did say very clearly in the second paragraph-
Mr Quinlan: Initiatives-first home owner scheme.
MR HUMPHRIES
: It is an initiative. We have to administer it. There is an administrative cost to the ACT, so it is an initiative in which we share. It is important
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