Page 2080 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 June 2015
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It is not good enough to ram this project through without popular support. It is not good enough to hide the true cost in the fine print. A project this big, the biggest in the ACT’s history, must be fully explained to the people and must be fully accepted. To go ahead without the full support of the people is beyond irresponsible; it is outright reckless.
We will not let this reckless action pass. The next election will be a referendum on light rail, whether the Greens-Labor government likes it or not. If we win, if the people of Canberra place their trust in us, we will not build this tram. And if we do not build the tram, if we do not need these unfair rate rises, we will not need massive increases in every other fee and charge that are hitting Canberra families and are well above CPI.
Make no mistake, Madam Speaker: these fee charges and these rate increases are unfair. How is it fair to triple the rates of retirees on a fixed income, people who paid their stamp duty, and get no extra services for their increased rates and massive increases in every other fee and charge—all to pay for a tram that goes nowhere near their house and that they are never going to use? How is it fair to those who have already paid stamp duty and who will have to pay the same amount over and over again for the rest of their lives as well as all the massive increases in all of the other fees and charges—all to pay for a tram that does not go anywhere near their house and which they will never use? How is it fair to businesses, whose rates have already doubled, who are already struggling to make ends meet, employ new people and pay massive increases in all of the other fees and charges—all to pay for a tram that goes nowhere near their business and that they are never going to use? Once again, all of Canberra is paying for something that only a few can use.
Not only are these rate rises unfair; they are unaffordable for many. We all know that Mr Barr claimed that rates would not triple. “Not in our lifetime,” he said. “At the end of the century some time, maybe,” he said. This budget proves in black and white that they are tripling. In the budget papers for the last year before Mr Barr’s changes, the revenue from rates totalled just over $198 million. The total rates revenue for the last year for forward estimates is nearly $554 million. That is an increase of 2.8 times, and that is only eight years into this reform. The fact is that people are getting their rate notices and they are seeing these rises. They know the truth, because they are getting these rate notice rises and they are seeing it year on year.
The last area of critique of this budget concerns an area that possibly affects most directly the lives of Canberrans—the provision of core services. They matter to people in the suburbs, and certainly they matter to me. I am talking about services like health, education and the provision of services for the most vulnerable in our community—all areas that should come first, but that are playing second fiddle to light rail.
When this government took over, they inherited a health system that could hold itself with pride right across Australia. It is now the worst-performing health system in the entire country. That is not a failure of the dedicated work of those in our health system—the workers, the nurses and the doctors. It is a failure of leadership and it is a failure of priorities.
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