Page 1779 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2016
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The only thing that they count as vision is a tram, a tram which they said in this term they would spend $30 million on, but I suspect they have probably spent something more like $130 million. We certainly know that there is lots of spending not in the capital metro line but by other departments. And you only have to remember, as you well would, Madam Speaker, the debacle that was this government’s management of the Gungahlin Drive extension to know that they cannot deliver capital works. We have Auditor-General’s reports that say they cannot deliver capital works, and we know that.
Then we go to rates. The rate of growth in rates will slow. We have all seen, as we approach the speed cameras on the highway, people speed along and then they know there is a speed camera so they slow down. The Chief Minister has seen the speed camera—it is called the ACT election in under 130 days—and he has taken his foot off the pedal for a little to just get past that little hurdle of the election. He thinks he can dupe people by saying that the rate of increase is only 4½ per cent this year, but it goes back up to seven per cent.
Mrs Jones: They are not that dumb.
MR SMYTH: And the public, as Mrs Jones pointed out, are not that dumb. They are hurting. They know their rates are well and truly going to double and then triple, because that is the only way the government can get rid of conveyancing. And they know the amounts. It is just the timing.
The Treasurer should be honest about what his expectation would be. He should have said, “Here is the 20-year program, here is the 15, here is the 10.” But even when we were discussing rates and rate reform he could not tell us the full picture. His initial answer in estimates was: “Go and read the Quinlan review.” The Quinlan review makes it quite plain. Rates will triple. Then he was forced ultimately to table some workings which make it quite clear that, after 11 years of these sorts of increases, rates will triple. Have no doubt, members, rates are well and truly tripling. He might have taken the foot off the pedal just for this budget but I do not think anybody is fooled and I do not think anybody is duped by the approach that this Treasurer is taking.
The other thing there is that at a time when the government says that housing affordability is a big issue for the government—it is certainly a big issue for those trying to get into the market—we have got a government that is totally dependent on land and the proceeds of land sales and taxes on land. And what they have done is to force people to reassess what they are doing and look at the units market. But there is a little sting in the tail with units. Apart from the increases this year, for units only, a change in the rates methodology will also add around $150 on average in 2017-18 and $115 on average in 2018-19.
The government said government policy is that 50 per cent of new dwellings should be infill. The majority of that, one would think, is going to be units in the town centres. So then they put a tax on it called lease variation charge; and we will get to lease variation charge in a minute. Then, because people are actually trying to get into units,
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