Page 535 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014
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The lease variation charge is excellent public policy and will not be changed.
Even though we have now changed it. I asked:
Is it not becoming, for instance, your mining tax—
“No,” said Mr Barr; I went on:
in that it has lots of promise but fails to deliver?
“No,” says Mr Barr. Indeed, it has become Andrew Barr’s personal mining tax because he promised the world and he is not delivering it. He has got the Chief Minister now covering him by her announcing the stimulus package because he probably could not stand up with a straight face and say that this is good public policy because it is undermining his perfect tax.
You only have to look at some of the quarterly figures for the lease variation charge. In the December quarter of 2012, the budget was $9.8 million. The actual was $2 million. In the March quarter 2013, the budget was $14.7 million. The actual was $7 million. In the September quarter 2013, the budget was $4.4 million and the actual was $2.7 million. In the December quarter 2013, the budget was $8.8 million and the actual was $6 million.
This is an underachieving tax from an underachieving Treasurer. It is important that we get to the nub of the truth. It would be interesting I think for all people in the community to understand why the government has changed. I urge members to support my amendment that calls on the government to table all of these documents.
The Chief Minister, in her own words again in question time, talked about the open government agenda. Let us see how open the agenda is. Let us see how open a government it is that this Chief Minister runs. Indeed, in her first speech as Chief Minister she talked about the new era of openness and accountability. We know that Mr Rattenbury is favour of openness because we are going to get a new FOI bill from Mr Rattenbury at some stage. Members, I commend the amendment to you.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Sport and Recreation, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Community Services) (3.54): The government will not be supporting Mr Smyth’s amendment. The Chief Minister is drafting an alternate amendment. I will take the opportunity to respond to some of the issues raised by the shadow treasurer.
The first and most obvious one that Mr Smyth overlooks in all his esteemed analysis of the housing market in the ACT is that there might be any economic downturn or cyclical impact upon that sector. That would not at all impact upon the levels of economic activity in an economy!
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