Page 1922 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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“elective surgery”. Of course, what it means is a vast range of conditions of people who need medical treatment but whose position is probably not life threatening. So there are many priority areas that have not been attended to, but we still cling onto the pet projects.
If the government approached the management of the territory’s budget seriously and responsibly, it would not rank all of its programs by importance and discard those low on the scale. More specifically, if the Chief Minister and Treasurer had any real grasp of his economic responsibilities, he would not be leading us down the garden path with notions that the Treasury has been uniquely spared from the high tax burdens of other states. I know he would probably say in response that Mr Costello did this review, prioritised things and so forth.
Where is that report? Let us see it now. The argument about the confidentiality of the budget has now come and gone. The budget is out there, so let us look at the Costello report. Let us see what he said about the priorities. Let us see what he said about the efficiency of various agencies. If this Chief Minister is so adept at preaching about accountability, transparency, good governance and the like, and very good at lecturing his friends on the hill, let us see a little bit of it down here. Let us see if the Greens get in behind it and ask for that level of accountability, and see how that sits with the ideological agenda. The people of Canberra certainly want that. That is what the people of Canberra are telling me. They are tired of being hit leg to boot with taxes, they are tired of lack of explanation and an arrogance that has matched this particular set of fiscal measures.
Since this budget was brought down on Tuesday, the justification for higher levies has been trotted out time and time again by the Treasurer that this is a low-tax paradise. It simply, however, fails to pass serious scrutiny. The ACT government expects to receive commonwealth grants of $1.2 billion, over $65 million more than its 2005-06 estimates, which includes indexed compensation for any deficiency the territory experiences in taxation revenues, whether they be payroll tax receipts or anything else.
The reality is that the payroll tax revenue that the ACT misses out on due to commonwealth government exemptions is more than compensated by extra commonwealth grants that are received. Put very simply, payments from the commonwealth take the place of tax revenue forgone, another one of the myths that has been foisted on the people of Canberra during the last couple of days. The simple economics of our situation suggest that, over the years, ACT government revenues have been more than sufficient, after taking into account its single-tier structure and its receipt of generous commonwealth grants. One of the smoke and mirrors tricks here is: when you look at this tax burden issue, that is where the territory sits.
Yesterday, I believe, at the press club the Chief Minister said we have the lowest tax in Australia. I think we rank fifth when you put in all charges, and second when you take out municipal charges. But of course there is one big difference, because we have one level of government, unlike our colleagues in New South Wales who have a whole structure of local government and a whole structure of state government.
To say that we ought to be on an equal footing with New South Wales when you add in all state taxes and municipal taxes quietly forgets one of the facts: we have vastly
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