Page 1779 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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large part through government policies in relation to planning, in relation to taxation and in relation to infrastructure, if there is one defining legacy of the Labor Party in Canberra and of the Labor-Greens alliance, it is that they have made it harder for families to pay their bills.
That is the thing that they will be most remembered for, and we see it playing out now at a national level and at a local level. The reality is that as bad as this federal Labor government are, and they are a bad government, and as much as they have placed additional cost burdens on families right across the nation, there is no-one who has done it more than this ACT Labor government. They have been the ones who have pushed the tax per capita up well above inflation, well above wage inflation. So Canberra families are being forced to pay more and more for government services, they are being forced to pay more and more for utilities, for property, for rents, as a result of government policies. And it is to their eternal shame that they do not seem to care about it.
Instead of the government hearing a good idea, which is that you should be open and transparent about cost of living, that you should actually put it at the forefront of your budget and just do it, we have now had to come back with legislation to direct the government to do it. Let us face it, they are not supporting it because they care about Canberra families. We have seen Mr Barr’s views when it comes to things like housing. He is happy with the two-class Canberra that he has created and that Simon Corbell and Katy Gallagher have created. They have created a two-class Canberra when it comes to housing.
We hear from Mr Barr when there are debates in this place, “Wages have gone up.” Yes, they have, but wages have not gone up anywhere near as much as the cost of utilities, the cost of rent, the cost of all of the things that people need. He tries to say: “Your wages have gone up. So you should be able to suck up the 130 per cent increase in your rates since Labor came to office.” Not many people in Canberra would have seen their wages go up by 130 per cent in that time. It would be the exception. There may be some, there will be some, but that is not going to be most families. Most families will have seen their wages go up by maybe 30 or 40 per cent over that decade, and that is what the wage price index has told us, whereas the things that they really need—water, electricity, a home, a roof over their head, their school fees, rates which they have to pay and other government taxes which they have to pay—have gone up much higher than that.
The Canberra Liberals are pleased that we are going to get some progress but it is frustrating and it is indicative of this government and the Labor Party and the Greens’ approach to cost of living that they are doing all they can to thwart it from being as effective as it should be. They are narrowing it as much as possible. I think what we have here today are small steps. And well done to Mr Smyth for pushing this issue forward when the government would not, when the government refused.
As I say, I think the only reason they have even supported it in principle is the politics. They realise that their heartless attitude to Canberrans, their “tax them until they bleed” attitude, is hurting them in the community, as it should. Unlike the Labor Party, we do not think that Canberrans are mugs. Unlike the Labor Party, we believe that
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