Page 1928 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
the ACT in the wrong direction. Members opposite have talked about the amount of money that is being spent in this budget on health and on education. Certainly we support that. But the reality is that many of those are fixed costs. They are costs that are embedded in our budget. They are, in many ways, not discretionary.
When it comes to a budget, each government has an amount of money that it can expend beyond what is fixed in health, education and so on. From that discretionary spending, you see a government’s priorities. What we see clearly from this government is its expenditure on light rail, its plan to embed light rail. There is $51 million in ongoing expenditure in this budget on top of the many tens of millions that have already been spent in other parts of the budget on capital metro and in TAMS. That is the priority of this government. There is $374 million referenced in the speech about capital works for capital metro. That is an enormous amount of money.
If we were in a position where we were in surplus, as we were promised—remember that Mr Barr used to talk about surpluses; he used to talk about the merit of surpluses so that governments had the discretion to do things—it might be a different matter. But we are not. In actual fact, with the result for this year and the forecast for the coming year, we have seen a deficit of $1 billion.
Some of that is because of Mr Fluffy, and we accept that. But that is just the reality. You have to play with the cards that you are dealt; you have to make decisions based on the circumstances you find yourself in. Rather than saying, “What we are going to do is focus on the things that matter for Canberrans out in the suburbs and look after everybody in Canberra,” this government is putting all its eggs in one basket in light rail. In the process, to try and pay for it, because of the record debt and record deficit that this government has put this territory in, it is putting up every fee and charge known to man.
When you look at the budget—payroll tax up 12 per cent; land tax up nine per cent; conveyancing up four per cent; vehicle rego up six per cent; ambulance levy up eight per cent; LVC up 16 per cent; utilities tax up five per cent; fire and emergency up 25 per cent; total other taxes up nine per cent; taxi licences up 17 per cent; fees for Regulatory Services up seven per cent; and so on—you see that everybody is paying. And particularly they are paying in the suburbs, Madam Assistant Speaker. They are paying to fund this government’s obsession with light rail. Be in no doubt about it.
As part of that increase, we are seeing the ongoing tripling of everybody’s rates. The government will argue that is not happening, but the reality—look to the Canberra Times and the evidence there that shows everybody’s rates going up suburb by suburb—is that what you have been seeing over the last few budgets is a 10 per cent increase. This year it is nine, but in many suburbs it is higher than that. If you do that year on year, then in about 11 years your rates have tripled. The revenue has tripled. The government came in promising that that was not going to happen, but we have now seen in the budget papers that that is the case.
The government also said, “We will get rid of stamp duty. We are going to remove stamp duty. That is a burden we are going to remove.” But when you look at the budget papers and the amount of money that this government is going to be taking
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video