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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 11 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3166 ..

MR STANHOPE: I am happy to table them. 1,584 replies and 1,900 signatures. 1,900 people in Gungahlin have written to me to send the message to you-stop stopping their road from going ahead. That is what you are doing. You do not want the road built. You do not care about Gungahlin. You are more concerned about a few of your Commonwealth mates. You are more concerned to protect the Sports Commission than you are all of the residents of Gungahlin. You do not care.

You do not care about the people of Gungahlin. I know just from your behaviour in the last month or so, that you are the absolute rabble that you have shown the people of Canberra you are.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Would you just resume your seats for a minute. I am driven to the edge of desperation. There is a standing order available to me that enables me to remove the troublemakers. I am very reluctant to do that, because that takes away representation from a significant number of constituents out there. I want to see a little bit of order in this place. A little bit of banter across the house is acceptable from time to time, but an uproar like that is just not acceptable, so desist.

MR STANHOPE: I am answering the question, and the response that I have received is 1,584 letters from residents of Gungahlin, most concerned that the Liberal Party is doing everything within its power to ensure that the Gungahlin Drive extension is either not built at all, or certainly is delayed considerably. That is what you have achieved. Of course, that is the reputation you now have: the party of spoilers and the party that does not care-the party that does not care at all about Gungahlin.

The people of Gungahlin are not silly. They know what you are up to. They are awake to you, and they now know that every day's delay in the construction of that road is down to you. The people of Gungahlin are not stupid in the way that you think they are stupid. They know and, of course, we will keep telling them about your spoiling tactics. We will keep telling them about how you delay at every turn. We will keep telling them that you run to your mates in the Commonwealth to ensure that there is no quick resolution to the problems in the planning required to build this road, and you will pay the price that you should pay.

Rates and land taxes

MR CORNWELL: Mr Speaker, my question is for the Treasurer. Treasurer, following the passage of the Rates and Land Tax Amendment Bill 2002, would you please confirm that, if people have lived in a property for many years, they will be eligible for a rates rebate but, if they move from that property, the rebate will not apply? Minister, how does this help elderly people who wish to downsize their accommodation, thus freeing up their original property for perhaps younger people with families?

MR QUINLAN: Thank you, Mr Cornwell. It is a very sensible question to ask, because we have agreed across this place that providing a fair system for rating has been a vexed problem for some time. The system that we propose will not help those people who want to downsize. Neither will the system it is replacing, by the way. However, what the system that we intend to introduce will do is allow people who have spent many years living in an older suburb to stay there, if they wish, among the network of friends and associations that they have built up.

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