Page 1123 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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from 31 per cent to 23 per cent—a period in which health care needs have grown significantly.
A similar trend is evident in relation to disability services, where again the commonwealth’s share of funding for the provision of disability services within Australia has fallen against the contribution that they made five years ago. The fact of the matter is that the commonwealth has increased the amount of tax it takes from the pockets of Australians while the states and territories continue to provide the services and economic and social infrastructure that are important to people, as well as managing the ever-increasing demands for services in public hospitals, schools, law and order and public transport. I say this because the federal Treasurer is demanding that the ACT, along with the other states, abide by the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Reform of Commonwealth-State Financial Relations, the IGA, by abolishing a range of important state taxes.
At the 2007 ministerial council, the Australian government Treasurer called on the states to develop a schedule for abolishing stamp duties on non-residential rural property, the last business-related stamp duty listed for review under the IGA. He repeated his call in the federal budget papers. The Treasurer indicated that the Australian government would be willing to be flexible as to the timing and phasing of the abolition timetables and would consider alternative tax reform reductions of equivalent value.
The federal Treasurer is being disingenuous on a number of fronts. He claims to be motivated by a desire for reform by reducing inefficient taxes which place a burden on business. However, it is clear that he does not really care about which taxes are reduced, as long as he can claim for himself a reduction in state taxes. At the same time, he is the highest taxing Treasurer in the history of the federation, and, instead of returning that tax to the community, he has hidden it away under the spurious pretext of a future fund. The states and the ACT have categorically met the requirements to review the IGA taxes but, given the growing pressure to deliver more services in the areas of health and education, are not in a position to remove additional taxes at the Australian government’s request.
Of course, those of us who have been here long enough remember all too well the damage that was done to the ACT economy and to this community when this federal government first came to power. The loss of somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 jobs crippled the economy and pulled the rug out from under the housing market. The legacy of this was the absence of commercial development, particularly here in Civic, for a number of years up until the recent spurt of activity.
And let us not forget that it was this federal government that unilaterally took from us $5 million in annual funding for corporate affairs compensation in 2005-06, a payment that all the other jurisdictions continue to receive. Moreover, this federal government in 2006-07 abolished the national competition payments, worth $14 million each year to the ACT, even though the cost of those reforms is still being met by the states and territories and the benefits are being reaped by the federal government. As I have said, the federal budget has clearly been framed with the looming national election in mind. As a big spending budget, it will add to the current strong position of the ACT economy.
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