Page 485 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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up with gusto—and supported the overall increase in the concessions support expenditure in the last two budgets.
The review of the concessions scheme is now well underway and I look forward to the ongoing community discussion to ensure that we get this right. I agree that it is certainly important, in the face of growing demand, that the review is not used as a vehicle to cut the support to the community across the board but instead to target the assistance to those who really need it. I encourage members to actually read the discussion paper to contemplate why people in the fifth income quintile are being given government concessions. We should ask those questions. We should make sure that we are distributing the resources as effectively as we can across the community to make sure that we are helping those who genuinely need assistance to make ends meet.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (11.35): It is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Mr Doszpot’s motion. I commend him for his concern for the people that he represents. I would like to make a few comments about the ACT concessions program and the review which I have, as you would imagine, been following quite closely. According to ACT government documentation:
ACT Government Concessions aim to promote equity in the standard of living and access to essential services for all members of the ACT community. Concessions seek to do this by providing financial assistance in a range of areas, including energy, water and sewerage, public transport, motor vehicle registration, drivers’ licences and spectacles, which seek to ameliorate the cost of such services for people particularly those on low incomes.
Also from the ACT government website:
The ACT Concession system is largely based on income and asset tests, determined by Commonwealth assessment under concession cards. There are also age-related concessions through the seniors’ card such as occurs with public transport and motor vehicle registration concessions.
My understanding was the review was to examine the nature, eligibility, usage and costs of the ACT concessions program, the current and future demand for concessions and the impact on the ACT budget. When Mr Barr spoke he asked where we believe concessions should go and whom we believe they should be aimed at. I would be very happy to respond to Mr Barr in that respect, having worked in the community sector with some of our most disadvantaged citizens.
Before I go to that though, I reiterate Mr Doszpot’s concerns about the timing relating to the review. Public consultation was conducted on the discussion paper released in November last year. There was around a four-week time frame for consultation. And most people in the community sector believe that is inadequate. It happens time after time after time, especially over a Christmas and January period when very many people in the community sector take leave.
To me, it goes against the ACT social compact which was one of those much-touted agreements that the government brought in a few years ago and seems apparently to have sat on a shelf and been completely ignored since then—those in-principle
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