Page 1445 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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That does not compare favourably to other methods of reducing emissions. So when we look at these schemes we have to ask ourselves some questions. Is it good for the environment? Is it an efficient way of improving our environment and reducing emission? What are the cost implications for people in the territory?
Mr Rattenbury’s motion is at pains, and rightly so, to focus on how low income earners can be protected from the burdens of subsidy schemes such as the feed-in tariff. We know that high income earners do not need particular protection from such a scheme. But at the same time, what we are potentially faced with, and this is our concern in the Canberra Liberals, is a situation where low income earners get a rebate, as they should, to deal with rising energy costs. With high income earners, many of them will get a windfall from having a solar panel on their roof and middle income earners get squeezed.
Middle income earners inevitably will have to bear more of the burden. The more subsidies we have in place, as much as those subsidies may be reasonable, the more middle income earners will have to pay, along with high income earners. But, of course, many of those high income earners, firstly, can afford it and, secondly, may be enjoying the financial benefits of engaging in the solar feed-in scheme.
It is worth looking at the burdens on middle income families in the territory. Particularly under this Labor government, whether you look at the stamp duty concessions or other things, they often try to put people who are on incomes of $70,000, $80,000 and $90,000 a year into the high income category. But if you look at the mum and dad with two kids on what, I think, is a fairly reasonable level of income in the territory, and a lot of people would be in this category, these are people who do not have lots and lots of disposable income.
For instance, let us look at the mum, dad and two kids: primary earner on $80,000, part-time earner on $40,000, so a combined income of $120,000. That is not uncommon and it would not be uncommon for there to be a mortgage of around $300,000. To get into the market at the moment, that is the baseline. That is a baseline mortgage you would be looking at. Of course, many people are forced to look higher than that. One child is in care part time, one is in a non-government school, dad is repaying a help loan for a uni degree and they have private health insurance.
Let us look at the costs. We have done a breakdown of some of these basic costs. For an income that at one level sounds good and is reasonable, there is not much left after all of the key expenses—after tax, after health, after Medicare, after the mortgage, after childcare, car, shopping, utilities, school fees. There is very little left out of that $120,000.
We would make the argument that any discussion of the impacts of environmental measures which push up the cost of energy, which in some cases will push up taxes, has to include a discussion about middle income families. Middle income families will bear much of the burden. As I said earlier, it is right that low income earners are compensated but what we will have if we ignore middle income earners is a situation where middle income earners inevitably have to bear much of that burden. They will
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