Page 2914 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 August 2008
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expenditure. Instead, the government has paved over its legacy of spending and waste by simply taking more money from taxpayers. In fact, since coming to power in 2001, the government has increased ACT taxes, fees and fines by a massive 66.2 per cent, an increase of more than 7.5 per cent per annum and a rate of increase that blows out of the water the figures on the growth of CPI, the growth of WPI or the growth of the ACT economy.
I will just turn my observation to some of the remarks that were made by other speakers in this debate. Mr Smyth went into great detail to talk about the three key principles of taxation. One would have thought that was as a basis for supporting this bill, but, of course, in the final analysis, he went to water on this. He talked about the impact on members of the Property Council, whom he is happy to schmooze when it comes to trying to get people to contribute to campaign funds, but when it comes to the crunch he is not willing to permit any situation where any other party may secure credit for tax reform as I have been outlining consistently since I have been in this place.
He talked about the GST. Indeed that issue is important in my view and one about which, even as recently as this week, I have had constituents write to me. The government seems to have squandered the opportunity, or profited from the opportunity, afforded it by the introduction of GST. Rather than using it as an opportunity to lower the tax level on residents, it has made occasional repeals extended over a very long period of time and then often followed them up by substantially increasing existing taxes and charges or even introducing new ones. The windfall, in effect, has been pocketed, and the people have been double-dipped in terms of the taxation.
I do find the Liberal position absolutely extraordinary. It has to be the classic backflip that I have seen since coming into this place. It is interesting to see the position of the Liberal Party on this issue. It is very interesting to hear them speak against the bill, given their claimed philosophy of smaller government and good economic management. I find it staggering that the ACT Liberal Party, a party allegedly committed to smaller government and greater individual liberty, would fall into lockstep conformity with the government’s high tax agenda. The Chief Minister is right to be delighted at the endorsement of his taxation policy by the supposed shadow Treasurer in this place.
In fairness to the opposition, their previous position on tax relief, including their positions on the utilities tax and the fire and emergency services levy, were both formulated at a time when I was the shadow Treasurer in that party, and that is when they adopted those policies. Perhaps I incorrectly believed that there were others in the parliamentary party of the ACT Liberals who felt that the government should stay out of people’s wallets. In that position, I became well aware of the utter impossibility of getting any of my former colleagues in three years to ever suggest a genuine cut in government spending. At least I thought they would support tax cuts, but they could not come up with one single reduction in expenditure in three years. They all said, “I have got another idea for spending money.”
The best example has to be Mr Smyth’s mathematical equation on how tourism works. He said, “You know, every dollar you spend in tourism is $5 in the ACT revenue.” I
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