Page 3048 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
He wants us to remain competitive. If you look at the rates bills Canberra businesses have received over the last three or four years, they do not make us competitive, particularly in comparison to Queanbeyan across the border in the New South Wales regime.
I bring to the attention of members the rates bill for a unit at Fyshwick. In 2012 this business paid $5,161 in rates. This year it is paying $7,636, a 48 per cent increase. How anyone thinks the environment the government has created through their tax reform help makes our businesses competitive in comparison with New South Wales is beyond me. I will read this: 2012, $5,161; 2013, $6,180; 2014, $6,743; and 2015, $7,636, a 48 per cent increase. That is not competitive. This firm owns their building. They are not getting advantage out of the removal of the conveyancing which is always lauded as the reason for doing this. The government uses the word “progressive” but this is purely and simply a tax grab. Businesses are paying as much if not more than the residential blocks as well.
We are well on our way to tripling your rates, and business looks at the long term. Business does its sums and works out where they can be competitive. Business looks at this and asks, “What have I got for the extra taxes?” Answer: absolutely nothing. Nothing from this government, because this is a government that does not listen to business. This is the government of the glossy; this is the government of the nutmeg strategy; this is the government that does not deliver, particularly for business.
You only have to look at the call of the business community for many years for a new convention centre, something the government seems to be remarkably uninterested in. The problem for the business community is that they know a convention centre is a driver of the things Dr Bourke and Mr Barr have spoken about. It helps drive the innovation conversation. It allows the face to face, the coming together of people. It allows us to showcase the institutions we have. But you do not get this sort of effect through this government’s policies.
We know the debacle of 2006 where they wiped out business support and they had to put it back in place. We know their land release program has never met the expectation of industry. We know their planning regime stymies business activity in ACT, and we know that by looking at Mr Barr’s pet project—the pop up. The pop up was due to be opened for Floriade last year. Here we are at Floriade this year and the firm that constructed the pop up gave it back to the government because it took so long. The process was so convoluted and arduous that in the end they simply gave it back. We know the government spent almost a million dollars on it, and I would be interested for an update from the Chief Minister or from anyone opposite on the real cost of the pop up to the people of the ACT.
Pop ups by their nature take advantage of a space. They appear and they are gone reasonably quickly. This is a pop up that has taken, what, almost 18 months to construct, and it is still not functioning to its full capacity. That is not a pop up. It is the perfect example of how this government lets down business in the ACT.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video