Page 2587 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 2013
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Mr Barr: You weren’t even in parliament with Ted Quinlan, for God’s sake.
MR HANSON: No, I was off serving my country when you were a political adviser for a bunch of Labor ministers, weren’t you? Are you disputing the fact that Mr Quinlan was one of your mates?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson! Address the chair.
MR HANSON: When you see the Quinlan tax review that Mr Barr commissioned, I think it is difficult for Mr Barr to argue that he does not listen to Mr Quinlan, when it was actually Mr Quinlan that devised the plan to triple rates. Mr Quinlan had a table in his tax review, the Quinlan report, that said, “This is how you’re going to triple your rates, Andrew.” He gave that to Mr Barr, Mr Barr has implemented that and he now says, “No, rates aren’t tripling.” But we know that they are, and I will get to that in due course.
With regard to the issue with ACTEW’s water pricing, the committee recommended:
… that the Appropriation Bill debate not be brought on until such time as the Treasurer has presented an amended bill and relevant budget documents detailing the effect of the ICRC determination on the ACTEW Water dividend and balance sheet.
Mr Smyth has articulated the position well—that there is $100 million or thereabouts that is missing, that the amount is going to be determined by ACTEW by the end of August but we are in a rush to debate this budget when there is no reason for that to happen because we have supply. But the government want to get that through because what they do not want to have to do, in this budget, is to accept that there is going to be a need for either increased borrowings to ratchet up the deficits or for cuts. We know that Katy Gallagher last night was talking about job cuts. This would equate to a couple of hundred nurses a year—or how many teachers? No wonder the government do not want to debate that. We think that we should. We think we should have the full picture of what this budget is before we actually are in a position to debate it.
When it comes to rates, as Mr Barr seems to be denying that he is mates with Ted Quinlan—despite the fact that Mr Quinlan does, I guess, the dirty work for Mr Barr—the tax reform that the government have brought in is going to triple rates. There is no question about it because you cannot do what they want to do, which is remove stamp duty and replace it with rates, without tripling them. It is a mathematical equation; it is quite simple.
The real question is: what is the time frame? The government are refusing to provide the modelling that would show what the time frame is. I assume that they have done it. But when we have asked about it repeatedly, Mr Barr said, “Go to Quinlan.” So we went to the Quinlan report and it has a table that shows it is happening in 10 years. We said, “Well, it’s 10 years; show us what it is. If it’s not that, what is it, Mr Barr?” And he will not show us. So we then wait for the ACT budget to be handed down and it shows 10 per cent a year which, extrapolated, assuming there is no increase in land prices, shows a tripling in about 11 years.
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