Page 742 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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MR RATTENBURY: You could have too. We could have seen a grand coalition in the ACT. That would have been innovative. Another important consideration of the federal government’s package is the equity issues. There are concerns that a number of low-income groups have missed out on the tax bonus and may be ineligible to receive a bonus payment under other bonuses. In particular, these issues relate to unemployed people with no children, pensioners with no eligible children, and people with no net tax liability—that is, those who are earning less than $6,000 a year.
It is recognised that some of these groups may receive or have received bonuses in other ways, either in the earlier economic security strategy or in this plan, but better resources could be targeted to people who are expected to lose their jobs in the forthcoming economic downturn. That is an important consideration that also needs to be built into the stimulus package.
There are a range of other areas that I could speak to. I think there are alternatives that can be used in the stimulus package to really invest in the future. I hope that the federal Rudd government will be open-minded in negotiating with the Senate. Those in the Senate have taken a considered approach to this package and it has been valuable to put this through a committee process over this week. It is a shame that some of that consideration was not done in the past. But now the impetus sits with the Rudd government to take on board some of those ideas.
The final comments I would like to make are simply, as Ms Hunter already flagged, that the Greens will not be supporting this motion today, nor will we be supporting Mr Seselja’s amendment. We believe that neither of those sets of words is useful. One of them is self-congratulatory. The other is simply responsive politics, and fair enough, given the nature of the original motion. We will be hoping that the Assembly can spend its time on more useful discussions in the future.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Treasurer, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Services and Minister for Women) (11.49): I think this is a very useful part of the Assembly’s business. This is a significant project; Mr Seselja has outlined how significant it is in size—and I think you drew on that in your motion yesterday—with $350 million coming to the ACT. This is probably something that the Assembly should discuss and debate, as we have done this week.
The comments from around the Assembly show yet again that members fail to understand the idea behind the stimulus package. I note that everybody here has better ideas about what should be in and what should be out. This is not a normal budget. These are not normal economic times. This does not necessarily give everybody the opportunity to put forward their wish list about what they think should be in the best stimulus package to respond to the current economic difficulties facing this country, and indeed the world.
When you look at commentary from around the world, there is general agreement that stimulus packages need to be delivered by government, they need to be targeted, they need to be timely and they need to be temporary in terms of their effect. This is the package that has been put forward by the federal government. It does not necessarily cover off everybody’s ideal hope about what should be in the stimulus package and
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