Page 4116 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 18 November 2015
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We go to what Mr Barr said. It is interesting because at the last estimates hearings Mr Barr said:
There is a policy argument to retain some level of stamp duty over the next couple of decades. We will need to consider at what level …
If you read the amendment and try to believe that what the words say are true and accurate, the government is abolishing stamp duty on conveyancing. If he had said “reducing”, you might buy it. It is certainly not abolishing stamp duty on conveyancing. It is simply talk. The reality was exposed in estimates when the Chief Minister said, “We will need to consider at what level,” and not just in the short term but for the next couple of decades. This is year four of your reforms. If you are taking it a couple of decades from now that will be well past your end date. If your language is sloppy perhaps you should get up and correct it. He is saying, “We will need to consider.” He is not saying, “We will tail off the conveyancing.”
We have asked Mr Barr so many times to give us the rates and the program that they are considering, but they refuse to table it. And we know why. They are addicted to the revenue because they cannot control their spending. Particularly now we see a government desperate for the revenue so they can fund the folly of capital metro. It is quite clear. The policy states that they are abolishing stamp duty. The Chief Minister outs himself where he says:
There is a policy argument to retain some level of stamp duty over the next couple of decades. We will need to consider at what level …
We have heard that every great economist says that stamp duty should go, yet now apparently there is a policy argument to retain it. One has to question what he is about. The reality is that you have got a minister who now does not even believe in his own statements. Apparently there is a policy argument to keep stamp duty over the next couple of decades. The reality is simply this: businesses and householders are paying through the nose for a government that will not keep its promises or cannot keep its promises. We saw the article about the Manuka newsagency, whose land value went from $1.5 million to $2.5 million. His rates went from—what was it?—$72,000 to $98,000. It is an awful lot of Canberra Times newspapers that you have to sell to make that up. Nobody believes that land value in Manuka has gone up by two-thirds in the past year. Nobody believes that, but this is a government desperate for cash because it cannot manage its finances.
Mr Barr said, “We have done nothing on the cost of living.” I think it was an amendment by me that got the cost of living statement put into the budget papers. It was something that, in a fit of honesty, they got right in the first instance until they realised: “Oh my God. We’ve actually outed ourselves and shown how bad it is.” So now we go to a number of scenarios so that you can ameliorate the impact and water down the truth, which is what they are keen to do.
It is kind of odd because we are almost in a position where the government is blaming the opposition for everything they have done: “Poor us.” Somebody said this morning that they always seem to blame us for their mistakes and things that they have done.
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