Page 2280 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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have no regard for the tens of thousands of families in the middle class who consistently get forgotten. We have in this Assembly had debates where we have simply sought to encourage the government to consider middle income earners on any number of policy issues and we have been rebuffed.
When we look at my motion, it goes to a range of areas. Let us go through them. It notes that total taxation has grown by 68 per cent since 2001. That is an increase per year of around $1.6 billion in revenue. Total taxation per capita has grown by 93 per cent. It has grown by 93 per cent. That is an increase of $1,696 per person. That is how much extra tax Canberrans are paying just to the ACT government—just to the ACT government per person. So a family of five are paying an extra $8,000 a year more to this government in taxation.
We have seen rents going up by approximately 68 per cent since 2001. Of course, they will go up much more. I will talk a bit more about the change of use charge which will make that burden even greater. But let us put that into context. That is $190 extra for weekly rental. That is more than I would have been paying to rent an apartment in 1999-2000. That has been the increase—$190. Around that time you could rent an apartment for between $150 and $200. Now we have seen that go up on average for Canberrans $190 a week.
We have seen water prices increasing 200 per cent. That is an increase of $550 to the annual amount paid for water. Electricity prices have also increased. Of course, Simon Corbell says that they are modest increases. This is now the view of the government. The view of the government is that electricity price increases are modest. Those so-called modest increases see Canberrans paying an extra $600 a year for their electricity. We have seen parking fees for all-day places in Civic increase by 57 per cent. That is an increase of $988 a year for parking.
None of that is modest. None of that is to be dismissed as we see so often by the Labor government in this town. They dismiss these issues as not relevant or not their fault. But they are relevant and many of them are, indeed, this government’s fault—many of them either directly, such as rates which I will get to in a minute, or indirectly, such as things like rent which are heavily influenced by government policy, water which is almost exclusively influenced by government policy and, of course other areas such as parking which are heavily reliant on government policy.
Let us look at rates for a moment. The government often like to tell us their defence. Firstly, it is either not their fault that these costs have gone up or it is not that bad—and by the way, we are not as bad as some other states; so what are you whingeing about? That is the message from the government and we get that consistently.
But let us have a look at how much extra some of the suburbs are paying: 75 per cent across the board extra is what Canberra families are paying for their rates since this government came to office. Let us have a look at some of the specific suburbs that have been particularly hard hit and particularly targeted by this government. Residents of Conder are paying an extra 84 per cent. That is an extra $594 a year that they are paying out to the ACT government directly for their rates. The people of Banks must have done something to upset the ACT government. They are paying an extra
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