Page 2282 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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Look at the numbers for that family: at $120,000 combined income, the tax goes to $23,000, the HELP being paid back, the Medicare, the mortgage, childcare, car, groceries, utilities, parking, school fees, private health insurance and then some basic family spending—a small amount of family spending, around $7,000 or $8,000. There is nothing left. There is actually nothing left.
It is not like this family with a combined income of $120,000 has lots of money to splash around. Things are tight. This adds up to $119,000. This does not include things like rates. If this family lives in Banks, they are paying an extra $780 above what they paid in 2001. They are paying out every year $1,300 to this government, which is not even included in this account.
Madam Assistant Speaker, the point of this is to do the numbers. Have a look at the numbers? These are modest. These are people who will never be in line for government assistance. They will never be in line for government assistance. So we have a responsibility to make sure that our policies are respecting these people. We are respecting the fact that they work hard, that they are not wealthy, that they pay their taxes and that they expect their governments to back them up.
They expect their governments to be in their corner, either through restraining their spending and not blowing it out so that you do not constantly have to be raising rates through the roof or through good policies so that things like electricity do not spiral out of control. You do not have policies like a massive tax on units so that rents increase. You do not manage the planning system and land release in such a way so that the cost of buying a home or renting a home gets out of reach.
One thing that does surprise me, and I guess I should not be surprised because we have seen it before, is the fact that the government will not support a motion such as this. It is curious, to say the least, that we would have this situation because of all these factors. This motion says: put it front and centre. At the moment this government does not put it front and centre. So put it front and centre in your budget. Put it front and centre in all of your policy development and in the development of legislation.
What is unreasonable about that? The counter-argument from the government is that it should not be front and centre. If the other argument is that it is front and centre, that is laughable because if it is, it is completely failing. We know that it is not. We know that it is not front and centre for this government.
I come back to where I started. This is a government that has an inner suburbs view of the world. They do not seem to have any regard—any regard—to the fact that families are doing it tough across the board. Many families in the suburbs of Canberra—whether it is Tuggeranong, whether it is Gungahlin, whether it is Belconnen, whether it is Weston Creek or whether it is Woden—are feeling the pinch. It is not just low income earners who are feeling the pinch. It is across the board.
The government should take responsibility and say that all of their policies will take account of their impact on the family budget. They should say that they will take
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