Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (1 April) . . Page.. 1189 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

makes people pay what they can afford to pay. If they want to buy increased amenity, they will know the rates.

One of the criticisms that will be levelled at this system, particularly by real estate agents, is that it will decrease the amount of churn; that people will not be forced out of their houses and forced to buy another one, so the government will lose stamp duty. If you invert that argument, we should run our economy by penalising those people.

That will be the pressure that ensures that government does not allow rates to go through the roof each year, even when houses are changing hands. The government will have to make one decision. They will know the CPI figure, but they will have to make one decision as to what number they will incorporate into the formula to ensure that rates do not prohibit or totally inhibit people from changing from place to place, or make some areas totally unaffordable.

If your objective is anything other than knocking the system because it came from government, just sit back and think it through. Give us another system. I have given you some numbers that tell you how poorly the previous system operated. You give me a system that operates better than the one I offer. I will happily accept it, because we want fairness and equity in the system.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (5.57): If what the Treasurer is seeking is fairness, then I can only take the words of Mr Andrew Whitecross, a former Leader of the Opposition and a former Labor member of this place, who in speaking about the then Liberal government's new rating system said on 17 June 1997:

Why did he say that? Because it incorporated the use of three-year rolling averages as put forward by Labor. It is curious that we want to talk about fairness. The Treasurer wants to achieve fairness. What about the poor pensioner in Yarralumla who has a large house and who because they cannot maintain a large property any longer sells the house and moves to the next street in Yarralumla, into a smaller house or an older person's unit. What will they pay? Ted's larger rates bill. Why will they pay it? Because they moved one block. After 1 July Ted will slug you for it.

The Treasurer will slug you if you move into a larger home because of your family has grown, as pointed out by Ms Dundas. The Treasurer will slug you if you move into a smaller home because your family has moved on or because in your twilight years you want something smaller. The Treasurer will slug you if, as the result of an accident, you have to move into a house specially equipped for someone with a disability. Even though you may move only next door, the Treasurer will slug you.

The Treasurer will slug first home buyers who buy a house after 1 July. They will pay at a rate different from that for the people next door. The Treasurer speaks of the bushfire victims in Duffy and Chapman. If you are bushfire victim, buy your new house before 1 July. If you do not, you will be paying the Treasurer's larger rates slug simply because you chose to leave behind something you wanted to move away from. There is no fairness in the Treasurer's system.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .