Page 2343 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2016
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How wrong was Mr Seselja. How wrong was he, indeed. This article shows that only five years later, five years into the 20-year contract, the very situation that I outlined in 2011 is starting to play out. Imagine what it is going to be like in coming years as those pressures continue to rise.
The endorsement of the territory’s strategy is one that ACT consumers will thank us for, and one that reflects the fact that when it comes to the cost of living, you have to take some long-term perspectives sometimes, something that I know our colleagues opposite struggle with. This is the sort of measure that will reduce the cost of living for Canberrans in a very real and concrete way for a sustained period of time. These are 20-year contracts, fixed prices. As the wholesale price goes up across the network, the ACT will be insulated against that, and our consumers will continue to benefit from that for many years to come.
Let me turn to transport. The government is investing seriously in public transport. We know that the cost of owning and running cars is a big burden on Canberra households. Transport costs are the second highest cost for a Canberra household, primarily because of the costs associated with owning and running cars. Providing quality public transport and starting to plan our city around more public transport are a way to alleviate future economic stresses for Canberrans.
The approximate average time that a resident of Canberra has to work in order to pay for a car is 550 hours a year or 1½ hours every single day. A study found that if an average family were able to run one less car in their household over a 25-year period, the household could accumulate more than an additional one million dollars in superannuation over their working life; repay a $300,000 housing loan in 12 years instead of 25 years, saving $245,000 in interest payments; or purchase a home which is $110,000 more expensive than they would have otherwise been able to afford at the outset.
They are just some of the examples. There are further examples around how much you can save. Leaving your car at home and travelling to work on public transport five days a week would save the average commuter travelling to work in the CBD around $3,500 average annually. That varies, of course, depending on how far one commutes. The average annual savings a commuter can achieve by not owning a car at all or not purchasing a second car for a household and commuting with public transport is $7,348 annually, with a range of $3,000 to around $15,000.
The point here is that, by government investing in these things, by taking a long-term perspective, we provide an opportunity for households in Canberra to save real money, substantial amounts of money. These are the sorts of things that should not be lost in the cheap lines that we see from our colleagues across the chamber.
Cost-of-living pressures are something we need to be mindful of. Different families will face different pressures. I have just taken the available time I have today to focus on two particular topics. There are many others I could have raised, but these are two particular examples where the approach taken by this Labor-Greens government is going to play out in very real benefits for the people of this city. I am proud of those steps. There are more areas and more work to be done, but they are real steps that will make a real difference for the citizens of this city.
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