Page 1216 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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We have seen income tax cut. We heard the Labor Party federally only a few years ago say people who were on $50,000 were rich, which is why they applied the top personal rate of income tax to people on $50,000 a year. As of next year, it will be $180,000 a year, and that top rate is lower than it was. It has gone from $50,000 to $180,000 a year. If we had gone with inflation it would have moved up to about $70,000, but it has gone up to $180,000. They have cut the middle rate and they have cut the lower rates as well. They have cut income tax across the board.
We have seen cuts to company tax, capital gains tax and other taxes and charges at the same time as they have been increasing spending on important national security issues, health and various important services to the Australian community. At the same time they have been cutting taxes. What a difference!
The budgetary position of the Australian government is now the envy of other nations. Look at the most powerful, biggest economy in the world now and the level of government debt that they have: something like $30 trillion. They are extraordinary levels of debt. For Australian taxpayers and the Australian people to be in such a good position now, where we have no net government debt and in fact are in a position to be planning for our future debts and for our future liabilities, we are the envy of most developed nations.
We have seen the economic legacy of this management. We see unemployment hovering around the 4½ per cent mark now. We have seen about 20 per cent real wages growth. That is 20 per cent more money in people’s pockets and does not take into account the significant tax cuts which see much more money flowing into people’s bank accounts. We have seen years of uninterrupted economic growth.
It has not been the case that there has been uninterrupted economic growth everywhere else. We have seen the Asian financial crisis, we saw a recession in the US, yet Australia has weathered that. A lot of the credit needs to go to the excellent budgetary management and fiscal management of the federal government, the federal Liberal-National coalition. We have seen in this latest budget significant benefits for the ACT.
The Chief Minister talked about $72 million for the Griffin legacy, which is welcome, but the bigger benefit has been our unemployment rate in the ACT, which is in large part a result of the expansion of the Australian government. It has been able to expand because it has managed the budget. It has done that not with deficits but with surpluses. We now have almost more workers than we know what to do with because of the federal government at the moment. In fact Mr Hargreaves said, “We do not know what to do with them.” Clearly the ACT government has not been ready to respond to that.
Once again, it is a study of contrasts. We have a responsible federal government that is able now to spend more money because it has managed taxpayers’ money well, and we have an ACT government not ready to respond through sufficient land release or even through sufficient commercial accommodation for these people to work in. That is a significant contrast.
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