Page 1099 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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MR SPEAKER: Stick to the subject matter of the question, Chief Minister.
MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, the shadow Treasurer has indicated his dissatisfaction with this revenue measure—the CPI as opposed to the wage price index—and he has indicated that he does not support our payroll tax regime. Mr Pratt has stated unequivocally and absolutely that he will abolish the fire levy. Mrs Dunne has indicated that she will abolish the water abstraction charge.
Mrs Dunne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the Chief Minister is constantly ignoring your rulings about relevance. He is actually expressing a lack of confidence in you by ignoring your rulings. You need to do something about that.
Mr Mulcahy: Speaking to the point of order—
MR SPEAKER: There is to be no debating of a point of order.
Mr Mulcahy: Can I speak to that point of order? I remind the Chief Minister that the two things I sought were details of the extra revenue generated and details of the other states and territories that have the WPI.
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, stick with the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker, but I do believe those comments are relevant. The government has maintained consistently in relation to the wage price index as opposed to the CPI that it is an acknowledgement that services must be paid for, that government services as delivered and delivered generously in the ACT by all governments since self-government have, at the end of the day, to be paid for.
The essential proposition of Mr Mulcahy in relation to his opposition to the wage price index as a measure of increase ignores the fact that the difference between the CPI and the wage price index, to the extent that the wage price index is higher than the CPI, is a difference or a cost that the government simply must absorb in relation to any service delivery, in relation to any staff. That is exactly what you are saying. What you are saying in relation to your opposition to the position adopted by the government in relation to the wage price index as a measure of increases in charges is that you, in government, would simply absorb the difference, that to the extent that wages are above—
Mr Mulcahy: It has happened for many years. Everyone else does.
MR STANHOPE: “Everybody else does,” says this great economic manager. Everybody else does it, so Mr Mulcahy and the Liberal Party will do it. They will absorb all increases in cost borne by a government between the CPI and the wage price index. That would be in the face—and this is the relevance of the digressions I make—of a spending promise of $1 billion by Mr Pratt to construct a light rail network throughout the ACT, including on Mr Corbell’s designated busway. How about the irony of that! There has been a raft of promises.
Opposition members interjecting—
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