Page 1782 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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We have an amendment, which has been circulated, which simply takes out the word “direct”. Given the powers of the Clerk to correct the grammar and spelling as required, it would then read “Territory taxes and fees that have an effect on the household”. I would ask the Greens to consider this amendment. I think it is quite clear, when you get your utilities bill, “ACT government utilities tax” is listed there. The taxpayer is paying that. Under Mr Barr’s definition, that will not be caught. We know why it will not be caught, because it makes their position worse.
The largest single cost to households in the ACT, on average, is housing. I think it is appropriate that housing taxes are included in this statement and it is ridiculous to say, “We cannot work it out because it is an indirect tax.” People pay those taxes. Somebody is paying those taxes and it must be possible to calculate it if you actually have a commitment to making a fair dinkum statement about the cost of living. But I suspect this Treasurer and this government are not fair dinkum about this because they have opposed it, kicking and screaming, until such time—and I suspect Mr Seselja is right—as they got some polling that said people are worried about cost of living. When you see the latest CommSec report, it says that the disparity between wage growth and CPI growth, the cost of living growth, is largest in the ACT and South Australia. In real terms, people are going backwards under this government.
I can see where Mr Barr is coming from. I am sure he would love to hide it, but the reality is that he cannot. People out there know. We know that all the fees and charges have gone up, whether it be electricity, whether it be water, whether it be rates, whether it be the federal taxes that have come onboard or are coming onboard. People are finding it tough out there. People find it difficult to pay their bills. If you are one of the less well-off members of the community, in many cases you are even finding it hard to get a roof over the head of you and your family, particularly your kids. But apparently that is not to be included because it exposes the government too much for the way that they have behaved over the last 11 years.
This bill is a genuine attempt to enable people to understand what the effect of the government’s budget is. Mr Barr says the details are already in the budget. You would have to read the pages and pages of analysis of taxes in budget paper 3, which most people could not find let alone read. What this bill provides is that there is a single statement where people can go and say, “Yes, we understand that it has got to be averaged out but for an average household in the ACT—
Mr Coe: Why don’t they prepare budget fact sheets that are easy to read?
MR SMTYH: That is a point. Why not prepare budget fact sheets? There used to be budget fact sheets years ago but they went by the by as well because you do not want to explain what you are doing to people. It would be relatively easy to include these taxes so that people get a true understanding of what it is that their government, in their budget, is doing to them. And if you are proud of your budget, if you believe in your budget and you believe that the budget is a fair thing, then of course you would take that step. But we know that they know they are in trouble. We all know that 11 years of Labor government has put enormous pressure on Canberra households. We know that they are the highest taxing government in the history of the territory. We
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