Page 1225 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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will just float liltingly down the centre of Northbourne Avenue, up and down, up and down, with an ever-changing series of artworks. Have you ever heard anything so preposterous in your life, and how desperate is that? It was greeted, Madam Deputy Speaker, with the disdain that it deserved at that meeting. People shook their heads and groaned at the very notion of trying to compare having a tram set down the centre of Northbourne Avenue with some sort of piece of art.
Those are the lengths that this government will go to. That is this government’s attempt to get this project up. At the Tuggeranong Community Council meeting last night, people were questioning the wisdom of this, as they question so many projects that this government goes ahead with.
This is a very simple motion. It calls on the Labor government not to sign any contracts and to let the people of Canberra decide on light rail. If you are so certain of your position, having regard to the couple of weeks that it will cost you, you should let the people decide. We are also calling on the Labor government to reduce the cost burden on Canberra citizens. You could start with the next budget, if you so dared.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Urban Renewal) (5.06): The government will not be supporting Mr Smyth’s motion, but I thank him for the opportunity to talk about tax, because we do not do enough of that in this place. We have not discussed tax reform anywhere near enough, Mr Smyth, and you have not given that 10-minute rambling anywhere near enough in your life. But thank you for doing it again for us this afternoon.
The motion before us today is indeed a stark sign of the lack of vision that those opposite have for our city. The government is engaged in nation-leading tax reform, and we are building the public transport system that will create an important urban renewal outcome for our city. Those opposite are not really interested in long-term growth and renewal in our economy or for our city.
Minister Corbell will speak about the capital metro light rail project shortly, but I will focus my comments this afternoon on tax reform. It is interesting this week that we have had a new bunch of entrants into the debate on tax reform. The New South Wales Business Chamber and the New South Wales Council of Social Service have joined forces to call on the New South Wales government to phase out stamp duty and replace it with a broad-based land tax in that state. They have joined forces. They have jointly commissioned modelling from KPMG that shows that such a change would increase the New South Wales gross state product by more than one per cent, around $5 billion, and create 10,000 jobs. There you go. You have got the New South Wales Business Chamber and the New South Wales Council of Social Service joining the Canberra Business Chamber and the ACT Council of Social Service in supporting this sort of tax reform.
In addition, Deloitte Access Economics, in a study they prepared for that known left-wing organisation the Property Council of Australia, in December 2015, demonstrated the negative impact—
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