Page 2281 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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152 per cent or $778 extra per year for their rates since 2001. The people of Gordon are not spared; they have a 99 per cent or $641 increase.
What is it about the Lanyon Valley, Madam Assistant Speaker? What is it about the people of the Lanyon Valley—Conder, 84 per cent; Banks, 152 per cent; and Gordon, 99 per cent? Fadden is paying another 85 per cent, an extra $673. What is it about the residents of Tuggeranong, who have copped another six per cent just this year on top of these massive increases over the last few years? What does this government have against the people of Tuggeranong?
The people of Calwell are paying an extra $692 a year or an extra 111 per cent. But do not worry. The people of Belconnen have not been spared. Charnwood residents are paying an extra 157 per cent or an extra $724 a year for this government. We can go through the suburbs: Amaroo, 96 per cent; Ngunnawal, 108 per cent; Mawson, 101 per cent, and the list goes on. These are real dollars. This is money out of people’s pockets that they cannot otherwise spend on their families and their needs.
Of course, we always hear from the Chief Minister on just how good it is that they spend a lot of our money on any given issue. It is never about results. In health, it is always about how much money we have spent. Anyone can spend other people’s money. How effectively is it spent and why are people being forced to pay so much?
We know that this government have become legendary for wasting money. That is one of the reasons why these rates and these other costs are so expensive. We know that the feed-in tariff will add another $200 a year. So they cannot claim that they do not have an influence over electricity prices. We know that water prices, which have gone up 200 per cent, are influenced by things like the massive cost blow-out in the Cotter Dam.
This government have to take responsibility. People resent paying all of that extra money so that this government can go and waste it. If they could show that they could deliver projects on time and on budget, maybe they would not resent paying a little bit extra and maybe they could get some of that money back occasionally instead of constantly having to fork out more.
I want to use the example of an ordinary middle income family living in the suburbs of Canberra to debunk this myth that the Labor Party and the Greens seem to perpetuate that it is only very low income earners who are doing it tough, because we know that low income earners are doing it tough. It is right that they get assistance. But there is a whole spectrum of people in our community who many would regard as being comfortable middle class who are doing it tough.
You only have to look at the assumptions when you put them together for a middle income family here in Canberra—mum, dad, two kids. Dad works full-time on $80,000 a year; mum part-time on $40,000 a year. That is not an uncommon family situation here in the ACT. They have a mortgage—a high mortgage. A mortgage of $380,000 is certainly not uncommon for anyone who has bought in the last few years in the ACT in order to get into the market. They have one child in care part time, one in a low fee non-government school. Dad is repaying his HELP loan for his uni degree. They have private health insurance. They have one car with a loan on the car.
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