Page 4161 - Week 13 - Thursday, 14 December 2006
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find it disturbing that private tenants cannot apply for either of these rebates or ESCC consideration of their debts because generally they are people who cannot afford to buy their own homes.
I also cannot understand why the government has not considered the impact of welfare-to-work on the ability of the unemployed, people with a disability and sole parents to apply for these concessions. If they lose their pensioner or health care cards due to federal government policy, they also lose their current right to access utility concessions. It seems that the ACT Labor government is happy to fight hard against AWAs and WorkChoices, but those people who are most disadvantaged and who are adversely affected by welfare-to-work simply drop off the radar screen.
It is tempting to think that this government turns its back on them, but I suspect it would be more accurate to state that this government does not consciously turn its back; it simply does not see them. Whether or not it likes it, this is a major problem with which it will have to deal. We are yet to hear whether the federal Labor Party will reverse welfare-to-work if elected. This will be the big test for the new and improved federal Labor team.
The current concessions regime is a mess. There are a number of cases where people who do not need the government’s help get it anyway and people who need help are not eligible. It also appears to be the case that a number of private schools and churches not in a position of hardship will continue to receive utility concessions. Anyone who wants information about what they are eligible for had better have plenty of time on their hands to search through the maze of government publications. It is high time this government finished the concessions review it was conducting between 2002 and 2004.
The Office of Sustainability is currently conducting a review of the Utilities Act and it has been doing so since January 2004. Public submissions to its draft report were due on 31 August 2006, yet not once has the idea of the Utilities (Network Facilities Tax) Bill or any other revenue measure been raised through this process. Here was the perfect place for the government to develop such ideas, in partnership with the public and with private business. Why did it not do that? New revenue measures provide opportunities to repair and ameliorate market failures and, in the case of utilities, there are obvious environmental issues surrounding water and energy use that we, as a society, will have to address.
Anyone with any sense of self-preservation or sense of responsibility for other people, other species and other generations now recognises that the time for action was yesterday, today and as soon as possible. Climate change is our biggest threat at a global, national and local level. We have an opportunity to help correct a market failure that sees us emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases merely because it is so easy in our society to do so. Why did the government not use this opportunity to make even minor corrections against this market failure?
Averting and adapting to climate change will require actions across government and the revenue raising system has a role to play. Silo thinking has again got in the way of action. My office was tempted to make amendments to this bill but as it is purely focused on a tax on the length of a utility’s network there is little or no ability to
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