Page 3680 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
whole lives in Canberra but cannot afford to buy a house here and also cannot afford the ongoing costs of home ownership.
It is also quite noticeable just how much more the increases are for units rather than for home owners. Home owners have, of course, already received significant increases, but what this government is doing is treating each block where units are located as a single block, calculating the rates at the highest marginal rate which is applicable and then dividing it. It is a technical change, but a significant change.
It is this technical change which has resulted in huge increases. It is somewhat contrary to the government’s notion that we want densification, that we want people to live in units, that we want people to live in high-rise or medium-rise developments. The government has been encouraging people to downsize, encouraging people to move into units and apartments. After so many people have done this, they squeeze them with this rates increase.
Then you have land tax as well. The land tax increases are often even more than this. Some rental properties this year are seeing an additional thousand dollars that has to be passed on to renters. An additional thousand dollars! You are going to see rents in Canberra go up $20 a week as a result of what this government has done.
Unfortunately, there is no end in sight. Hundreds of people with direct concerns about rates have contacted the opposition in recent weeks. They are pleading with us to do something. We can move motions like this in the Assembly, raise the issue in the media and put forward alternatives, but when it comes down to it, it is Labor and the Greens that have brought this on and it is Labor and the Greens who can end this.
It is all very well for the Greens to complain about it now, despite the fact that in 2012 the Leader of the Opposition, Zed Seselja, made it very clear that this was a trajectory that everyone was on. There was denial. But we are very much on that trajectory. The trajectory that we are on may be even worse than what was predicted a few years ago, and that was dismissed as being wrong.
Dianne Peacock from Isaacs wrote to the Canberra Times on 30 August this year. She said:
Many townhouse owners, like myself, are retired, have reduced and limited incomes and seek to decrease our cost of living and continue to rely on our own resources. The government’s budget measure is inequitable and unfair.
Last sitting week we saw Reg and Naysin Dyett here in the Legislative Assembly in the public gallery. Reg and Naysin, an elderly couple in their eighties from Braddon, came in here because they were so concerned about their rates going up. This year alone their rates went up by 50 per cent. Fifty per cent! Bear in mind that in other councils a five per cent increase is a big deal. Their rates went from $959 to $1,464 in one year, a 50 per cent increase. Some $10 per week of their disposable income, in addition to what they were paying before, is now going to the government. These people between them have given decades of service to the Canberra community. They
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video