Page 1229 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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the destruction of the world’s remaining forests and promote sustainable forest management.
DR FOSKEY: While we cut down all the Tasmanian ones?
MR MULCAHY: Dr Foskey asks, “While we chop down trees in Hobart or somewhere?” The fact of the matter is that we are making a major contribution, a major outlay, but the Greens cannot bring themselves to acknowledge it. They cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that we have strong employment in this country, that we have a buoyant economy and that people are enjoying their lives.
Dr Foskey has either got a terribly short memory or she was out of touch with reality in the eighties and nineties, when people experienced terrible times. During the eighties some people in business were so devastated by interest rates that they committed suicide. I have heard of many examples of this. Businesses went bankrupt in the early nineties. In Bay Street in Melbourne 30 out of 31 hotels went into bankruptcy. The impact on people’s lives when their businesses fold because of high interest rates and because of poor economic management cannot be underestimated. The fact of the matter is that Dr Foskey has failed to recognise that Australia is experiencing an economic boom the likes of which we have never previously enjoyed. We are seeing lower levels of tax, we are seeing our kids in jobs and we are seeing people able to buy their own homes. Some credit ought to be given where credit is due.
As I said, the Chief Minister bounces between AAS and GFS accounting. This is a clever device because I can tell you that 99 per cent of the people in the ACT would not have the faintest clue what the differences are. But I think the Chief Minister knows full well what they are all about. So when it suits, he grabs a set of data that tries to make his government look good. It was not until Mr Quinlan eventually threw in the towel and left them with problems that they realised they had significant management issues in the ACT. He came to the reality that he had presided over the creation of some additional 2,000 jobs within the territory government that they could not afford. Of course, this territory government has been more than happy to collect an additional $80 million in taxes, fees and fines this year from a population of 330,000.
We are told that we are living beyond our means but it is worth looking at how much our means have increased over the last few years. In 2007-08 the ACT will receive $823 million from GST. I know Mr Barr does not think that is much and tells us we are going backwards, but according to my school of mathematics it is actually $55 million more than last year and $83 million more than we would have received under the previous system of assistance grants and inefficient territory taxes abolished under the intergovernmental agreement. When I get a chance to speak this weekend in another forum in Sydney about the intergovernmental agreement, I will certainly be advocating very strongly that state and territory governments that try and get around the IGA by sneaking in a raft of new taxes should have their allocations of GST revisited.
The people of Canberra are being fleeced. They are paying GST on their goods and services and were told that there would be tax relief. This territory government is double dipping on the people of Canberra. I am troubled when I look at the people it
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