Page 2493 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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What Ms Hunter has put forward in these amendments actually provides a much greater level of transparency in relation to remissions and to which areas government may seek to align policy, be that planning, environment and sustainability policy or community objectives, in providing remissions or incentives to get a community benefit.
The important point to make is that markets will adjust and that the combination of factors that are at play that a number of people have highlighted in this debate will interact and result in an equilibrium, Mr Speaker, as markets adjust, as you would expect. What we will see over time with the combination of the government’s planning policies and the government’s sustainability policies is a supply-side increase as we apply a number of other policy levers and put forward a number of other complementary policy options that will assist the market to adjust. And the Treasurer is absolutely right in having a transition period, as is sensible when introducing a policy of this nature.
The economics stack up. Countless experts have examined this matter and they all reached the same conclusion—that this is an economically sound change, one that is in the interests of the entire Canberra community and one that seeks to put their interests ahead of the narrow sectional interests that the Liberal Party chooses to represent. But that is what we have come to expect from the Canberra Liberals. They are very happy, it would seem, to criticise these particular initiatives. We are yet to see any constructive alternative, I might add. There is no policy alternative being put forward in this debate. It is relentless negativity from those opposite versus a significant structural reform of our arrangements in this area that are for the benefit of the entire Canberra community.
That is why these amendments and this legislation should be supported and that is why it will be, in the long run, viewed as one of the most sensible, most rational and most significant changes that this place has adopted in recent history.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (9.10): I am reminded that the standing orders say that speeches should be relevant. We have been discussing some amendments and I do not think they actually got a single mention. There is no analysis of the amendments. The gentleman with the economic creds on that side did not talk about the benefits of the amendments. He spent a lot of his time talking about us. It is always a badge of honour when you have the government talking about you, because it means the government is worried about what you are doing. And you should be worried, because you make your snide lines about sectional interests. I have never thought of homeowners as a sectional interest. I have never thought of renters as a sectional interest.
Of all people, he is probably the only one on that side of the chamber that actually gets economics at the broader level; I am not sure about it in the detail. Mr Barr is the only one in this place who has previously admitted that, yes, all taxes have an effect; it is a drag and something happens—apparently except for Katy Gallagher’s magical change of use charge. It does not have any effect. Apparently it is so good that it does
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