Page 3905 - Week 12 - Thursday, 30 October 2014
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Mr Corbell: What rubbish. AAA credit rating. AAA credit rating, Alistair.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Stop the clock. Mr Corbell, I have asked you to desist from repeating your comments. If you continue, I will be forced to warn you. Please try to minimise your interruptions to a dull roar at the very least. Mr Coe.
MR COE: As I was saying numerous times until I was interrupted, if not a uniform rates increase, perhaps there will be a special charge for those living up and down the corridor. What is that corridor going to consist of? Is it going to be everyone in north Canberra? Is it going to be everyone in Gungahlin? Is it going to be everyone north of the lake perhaps? What that means is that there will be two Canberras—a Canberra that pays more and a Canberra that pays less. If that is so, surely that is an admission that this is not actually transformational for all Canberrans; it is transformational for only some Canberrans.
Mr Corbell: Rubbish.
MR COE: If you are going to have this special corridor, which is the high taxing corridor, the place where they get a little notice from Mr Corbell saying, “You can thank me by giving me another grand or two,” when that little note comes in—
Mr Corbell: Rubbish.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, I warn you.
MR COE: There is going to be this special notice, this special love letter from Minister Corbell in the rates notices which says not IOU but UOI. That is what it is going to be—maybe $1,000, maybe $2,000, maybe $3,000. You do not have to think too hard about it to realise that if it is going to be $500 for every household in Canberra, if you are just going to keep that to maybe 10 per cent of the households in Canberra—14,000 up and down the corridor—perhaps you are looking at a $5,000 rates bill each year. Otherwise where is this money coming from? If it is not coming from the taxpayers, where is this money magically coming from? That is what this motion is all about; it is about allowing people to actually give proper scrutiny to this project.
What we know from media outlets such as the Canberra Times is that there is no shortage of interest in the capital metro project. But it would be nice if the Legislative Assembly, through the committee process, actually gave these people an audience in this building. It would be nice if this Assembly created a forum whereby concerned citizens, those both in favour of and against the project, could come in here and put on the record of this place exactly what they think about this transformational project.
The Greens’ philosophy, as per their website, is underpinned by a belief in grassroots democracy in which all citizens have a right to express their views and have the capacity and opportunity to direct and participate in environmental, economic, social and political decisions. Isn’t that interesting, because my motion lists those very same four things: give us financial, economic, social and environmental aspects of this
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