Page 4303 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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These things need to be paid for, and this means that some taxation is required. It is very easy for Mr Coe to be against rate rises, but in practice that means he is supporting something else. Possibly he is supporting stamp duty. Possibly he is supporting cuts to the health system, the education system, playgrounds or public health. I do not know, and Mr Coe has not specified.
The Greens are not going to support cuts to services that the community value very highly. This means that we do support adequate government revenue. A key point that we need to think about in relation to this is how to raise revenue with equity and efficiency. The ACT Greens support the ACT government’s taxation reform program on efficiency grounds. We are not alone on this. As Mr Barr pointed out, the Productivity Commission has recently stated in the last day or two that it thinks that all states and territories should follow the ACT’s lead and move away from stamp duty towards a more rates system. This is supported by most economists and business groups.
I am not going to talk about that at length, because I think we are in furious agreement. What I am going to talk about more is the other part of the issue: ensuring that our taxation system is equitable and fair. While the taxation reform system has been and is widely supported as an economic efficiency reform, social justice and fairness are just as important. As I said in September, the Greens are focused on ensuring that the reforms do not have unintended consequences for vulnerable people in our community. This is where we think that more work is needed.
I will speak about equity and fairness in three parts. First I will talk about units, because clearly that was the focus of Mr Coe’s motion. Secondly, I want to raise a possible solution that could reduce some of the difficulties in our whole rates system. Thirdly, I want to talk about some issues of fairness of the whole rates system.
Looking specifically at the rating system for units, the reason it has been changed, as Mr Barr stated, is to improve the equity of the rating system. I direct the attention of members to the Charnwood example in Mr Barr’s amendment. A pensioner in a $500,000 house in Charnwood should not be paying $400 a year more in rates than a pensioner in a $500,000 unit in the city. It is reasonable to assume that they are both in a similar financial situation. The pensioner in the unit will have body corporate fees but will have lower maintenance costs. For example, when they get to an age when mowing is too hard, the pensioner in Charnwood may need to pay for someone to get it done. The same goes whether we are talking about pensioners or non-pensioner home owners.
We have heard an argument that people in units use fewer services than people in houses. That might be true, but it is only to a very tiny extent. Over the past few years I have moved from a house in Downer to a multistorey unit, and now I am in a townhouse in Woden. I am not aware that I have used anything less in the way of government services. Therefore, I do support the change in the rating system to improve fairness between units and houses.
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