Page 1165 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007

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(4) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) similarly commit to sound economic management;

(b) seek to reduce the tax burden on the people of Canberra by lowering the cost of Government in the ACT; and

On 8 May 2007 the Australian government delivered the federal budget for the 2007-08 financial year, and that budget provides a surplus of $10.6 billion, similar to the previous federal budget of 2006-07, which provided a surplus of $10.8 billion. This 2007-08 budget was the Howard government’s 10th budget surplus, building on a long tradition of responsible economic management. As a result of the sound economic management of the Howard government the Australian economy continues to grow in its longest period of expansion ever recorded.

We spoke yesterday of the positive impact of the federal budget on the ACT economy, so I will not go into that again in great detail today. But it is worth examining how the remarkably strong budget position was secured. This most recent budget surplus, in a long line of budget surpluses, was not achieved by ravenous taxation and ever-increasing levels of rates and charges, as has sadly happened in the ACT. To the contrary, the federal budget provided for $31.5 billion worth of personal tax cuts over four years—tax cuts, not increases.

This continues the Australian government’s commitment to sound economic management and to alleviating the burden on taxpayers. In last year’s federal budget we saw the tax brackets moved up and we saw reductions in the tax rates. This year we have seen the tax brackets moved up again, which will ensure that 80 per cent of taxpayers face a top marginal rate of 30 per cent or less. The sound economic management of the Australian government, as well as the many reforms that they have introduced during their time in government, have led to record prosperity in a number of areas.

Since 1996 when the Howard government came to power there are two million more Australians with jobs. The unemployment rate is now at a 30-year low here in the ACT and, in addition, real wages—not nominal wages—adjusted for inflation have increased by 20 per cent over this time. This situation is a far cry from the image of a nightmare, which has been pushed by Labor’s union cronies and which was the hallmark of claims by the Labor Party when the Howard government came to office and again, more recently, with the workplace reforms that it introduced. We were told that massive numbers of people would be put out of work, that there would be loss of employment and so forth. But that is contrary to what has happened; that is not what has happened. We have seen an economic boom in this country the like of which is without precedent in Australian history.

At the same time as the federal government have managed to cut tax levels they have still managed to get people into the workforce and so we have moved from a situation where people struggled to find jobs to one now where people can change jobs, they have no difficulty, by and large, in securing employment and they have substantial

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