Page 1919 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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We knew this government would not do an analysis of cost of living, so we did. Mr Speaker, I release today the study paper ACT Labor vs the family budget—the rise in cost of living under the ACT Labor government. I seek leave to table the paper.
Leave granted.
MR SESELJA: I table the following paper:
ACT Labor vs the family budget—The rise in cost of living under the ACT Labor Government, dated May 2011, prepared by Mr Seselja.
Here we see the true story of this budget, and 10 years of ACT Labor, as it affects the family budget. This is the true legacy of Labor in government, the true legacy of 10 years of ACT Labor. Mr Speaker, I place this on the record because that is what we are concerned with—the fight between the government grabbing family money and families deciding for themselves. We are doing this because there is a genuine and growing sense in our city that even middle income families with two incomes worry that they cannot pay their mortgages or go out to dinner or take the kids for a holiday, where young people are beginning to think they may not be able to afford rent and they will never be able to afford to buy, where parents watch their personal aspirations for their children’s schooling fade away because they simply cannot afford choices, where retirees, who have worked all their lives and who believed they would be comfortable, are now feeling that their life’s savings are not stretching far enough to last them. There are more and more people who cannot understand why their pay cheques can no longer pay the bills like they used to anymore.
Mr Speaker, the reason this is happening, both directly and indirectly, is there is another person asking for his bills to be paid from the weekly pay packet—Jon Stanhope. Our cost of living study looks at the real costs facing real families. Some of these are directly set by the government and others and highly influenced by government settings. All of them are going through the roof. First there are rates, directly set by the government. They have increased massively in all suburbs over the last 10 years, in many by over 100 per cent.
Let us have a look at some of them. In Banks people are paying 152 per cent more; in Chisholm, 130 per cent more; in Isabella Plains, 116 per cent more; in Ngunnawal, 108 per cent more; in Amaroo, 95 per cent more; in Spence, 148 per cent more; in Dunlop, 137 per cent more; in Evatt, 136 per cent more; in Holt, 138 per cent more; in Mawson, 109 per cent more; and Holder, 98 per cent more. Do any of these people feel they are getting that many extra services after 10 years? Tuggeranong as an area had a 5.5 per cent average increase just in the last 12 months.
Then there is stamp duty, another area set directly by this government. The stamp duty paid to the ACT on a house of $550,000 is $23,375. The average stamp duty paid, with all the “affordability measures” that this government has, is still $22,685. That is the biggest cash grab on a home purchase by any government anywhere in the country. There are rents, which have grown by 68 per cent since ACT Labor took power, and now are the second highest in the country.
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