Page 1166 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
after-tax earnings available to spend on all manner of things, including housing. We have seen a growth in the investment market in housing because of this prosperity.
It was interesting to hear Hugh Mackay talking about this this morning on the ABC and citing the number of people who are getting into investment properties and the like—their own personal additional form of superannuation. All of this is made possible when people have certainty of income and employment, which we have now, thanks to the Howard government. I will give some idea of the effect of this prosperity. Due to the increase in real wages during the term of the Howard government, a person who would have been on a wage of $25,000 a year is instead earning $30,000 a year and, in addition to earning more money, the tax cuts in this year’s federal budget mean that this person will now be able to keep an additional $1,100 of their money. This reduction in tax will be of great benefit to Australian families, who will now be able to better provide for their own needs without having to beg to their political masters.
The federal budget has been greeted across Australia. Even the ACT Chief Minister greeted the budget as a good, attractive budget for the vast majority of Australians and he said it was great for the ACT economy. I have no issue with those statements.
But let us look at the ACT. We are approaching the end of the financial year and it will soon be ACT budget time, a time when the people of Canberra wait with bated breath to see how much of their money will be taken away from them this time and on what kind of futile projects money will be wasted.
The people of Canberra have come to expect two very different budgets at this time of year. One budget has consistently provided surpluses through good economic management and restraint in spending. I would like to see more restraint in spending at the federal level and further tax reductions; but considerable progress has been made in the decade of the Howard government.
But what do we see on the other side of the ledger? The territory budget has consistently provided for runaway taxation and runaway spending. We are now expecting that the ACT budget may come in with a surplus, and this is hardly surprising. It has not come from great restraint in spending. It has not been achieved through efficiency gains either. So how is it that the territory is likely to be getting back into the black? As we discussed yesterday, the ACT government has continued to benefit from higher than forecast levels of GST revenue. This year the ACT government is expected to receive an additional $55 million in GST revenue—and keep in mind that this is also paid by our citizens—and another additional $42 million in other commonwealth grants. The ACT government has also benefited from higher returns on superannuation assets which it continues to count, of course, in its operating performance.
Then we come to the bit that the ACT government really is responsible for. The last ACT budget provided for massive increases in rates and charges. We saw a massive increase in property rates. On top of this we saw a range of other new taxes and charges introduced, punishing families in Canberra and hurting people who are on superannuation and fixed incomes, and were told: “Well, this is all necessary. You
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .