Page 1778 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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efficiency in order to lower the utilities bills that people receive as well as providing flexible payment options for fines. This was something recommended by the panel; it was one of the recommendations in the strategy released within the last week or fortnight. We have followed this through. We already have legislation on the table about flexible payment options for fines. That is Ms Bresnan’s bill, and we will be debating that bill next week.
One observation I make about the government amendment is that it refers to an ACT household. We think this provides a more holistic picture of the impacts of taxes and charges. Our view is that a range of scenarios and different household types should be included in the new statement. Certainly the Legislation Act allows for the multiple interpretation, and I expect this is what we will see in the budget papers. I also say that we should be focused on the direct impacts rather than incidental impacts. This is something quite new, as Mr Barr also pointed out. So if we start with those direct impacts, over time, we can evolve the statement to be an even more fulsome picture of what is happening and the impact of taxes and charges.
I note that the supplementary explanatory statement and Mr Smyth’s own comments recognise that the inclusion in the budget papers of the impacts of taxes and charges will be an evolving task. The Greens certainly agree with this and look forward to being able to use the extra information to inform initiatives and measures that will provide direct assistance to those who are struggling in our community and to really look at the impact of any changes to the way taxes and charges are levied and, therefore, what we can do to ensure that we support those households who need our assistance.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.57): The opposition will not be supporting this amendment. I think that what we are going to get out of this bill today will be an improvement on what we have at the moment. But as usual, the Labor Party and the Greens are resisting giving the full story and are resisting genuinely committing to trying to make people’s cost of living in the ACT better, to lower the cost of living for the people of the ACT. So this amendment, which has been circulated by Mr Barr and moved by Mr Barr, is really about trying to limit this statement. As I say, whilst what we will get through will be better than what we have at the moment, which is where the government has been silent on the cost of living, I would make the point again that the government did not need a piece of legislation to do this. The reason we have had to introduce a piece of legislation was that the government thought it was a bad idea to have a cost of living statement.
The Labor Party in the ACT have shown their disdain for families and their cost of living pressures time and again. I think that their limiting of the scope of this legislation is another way in which they are going to do that. They do not want to talk about all of the issues, all of the ways that the budget and government policy affects Canberrans’ cost of living. And the reason they do not want to talk about that is that no-one has placed more burdens on Canberra families than ACT Labor and their Green partners. Whether it is through the massive increase in rates, whether it is in the massive increase in electricity as a result of some of their schemes, whether it is in relation to the massive increase in the cost of water, whether it is the massive increase in taxes on property, whether it is how we have seen rents go through the roof, in
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