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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (1 April) . . Page.. 1190 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The Treasurer said it was all about getting rid of the inequity of somebody in Dickson or Downer paying 10 or 12 per cent extra and people in Barton and O'Malley seeing their house prices go down by a few per cent. Let us take an example based on the Treasurer's formula. Let us take a street in Chisholm, my suburb. If you own an average property in Maclean Street, not my street, your rates will go up by CPI-let us leave it at 3 per cent-and you will end up paying $599 in rates this year.

But if you live at No 52 and on 2 July you buy No 54, under the Treasurer's formula your rates will go up by nearly 25 per cent. That is in the first year. Rates will not go up by 10 per cent in some areas and down by 17 per cent in others. They will all go up. Everybody's rates, every year from now on, will go up. All will go up by at least CPI. Because it is fair and equitable, some will go up by at least 25 per cent! You can hardly say that Chisholm is the salubrious heart of the redevelopment industry in the ACT. All the rich people are racing to live in Chisholm!

If you move next door in Maclean Street after 1 July, your rates will go up by nearly 25 per cent. Rather than paying $599, as a new owner you be pay $737. Why? Because the Treasurer says it is fair. I am going to pay $599, Mr Speaker, and you are going to pay $737. That is fair!

This is about money. It is about revenue. Mr Treasurer has a problem. The December figures say that instead of a surplus of $6 million at the end of this financial year, the figure will be at least minus $59 million, and who knows where it will go. This is not about equity. This is not about fairness. You should not be using taxation to distribute welfare.

For a person who was living in Red Hill before 1 July rates will go up by CPI. That is all they will go up by. They might have a mansion worth $2 million or $3 million, but their rates will go up only by CPI. The battler in Chisholm, whom the Treasurer ignores, faces an increase of at least 25 per cent. The Treasurer produced one graph when we asked for the data. Where is the data that says that overwhelmingly we need to reform the rates system because it penalises the battlers of Canberra? There is no data. What have we got? What did the Treasurer wave around but would not release from his paw? He did not do his homework. He has one graph. What does that graph say? It says that revenue will go up.

The Ratepayers Association have done their homework. They reckon under this scheme the government's take from rates will double in 10 years. That is revenue going up. We said we would limit the total take to CPI each year. That is what we did, and that was fair. Under the government's scheme the take will be a minimum of CPI plus a percentage increase for all the people who move after 1 July.

The REI are trying to work out for me how many people move every year. The number is about 10,000, or about 10 per cent of the market. Over 10 years a substantial proportion of the people of Canberra will move. What does this mean? You will have many new residents living next to old residents, and there will be enormous differences in the amount of rates they pay.

Worse, people who move to another property in the same suburb because their current property is too large or because they can no longer maintain the lawns will pay higher

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