Page 230 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 2018
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is an arrogant government that is far more interested in its own pet projects than the welfare of the 400,000 citizens it is here to represent.
I urge those opposite, including the Greens, to support the referral of these petitions to the public accounts committee. I note that the Greens are not on the public accounts committee, so it is hardly going to be a burden for Ms Le Couteur or Mr Rattenbury to make this referral. It is obviously within the remit of the public accounts committee. This is core business for the Assembly and it is core business for our public accounts committee to do this. To that end, I think we owe it to the 400,000 Canberrans, particularly the petitioners, for the future of Canberra, to pause and at least have a look at it and hear the stories of the impact of this unfair rates regime.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism and Major Events) (10.14): The government is happy to support a referral of the petition to the public accounts committee. That is perfectly within the purview of that committee. The opposition leader is correct in that assessment. There is obviously a degree of interest in tax reform, as there has been over the past two territory elections. The government has been very clear in taking this tax reform agenda to two elections now.
These are not new issues. I think this is the fourth time that we have debated in this place these matters that are pertinent to the change in methodology for units since the government announced prior to the 2016 election its intent in this area. So this is not a new debate but one that we are comfortable to have, recognising that there will be a diversity of views within the community in relation to tax reform.
One thing most people agree on is that they are not particularly happy about paying any tax ever. I do not meet many people who come bounding up to me and volunteer their great delight at paying tax. That is understood. I do meet plenty of people who come to the government and request that the government invest more in service provision and delivery of the variety of essential services that this community needs.
Research across Australia over the last decade or more has consistently shown that a majority of Australians—not every Australian but a majority of Australians—would prefer to pay a little more tax in order to receive the full range of health, education, community services, policing, emergency services and the like.
That has been pretty consistent across about a decade worth of opinion polling in this nation—here in Canberra and everywhere else. That is not to say that everyone holds that view. There are some people who would prefer there be no tax at all and presumably no service provision from government. There are others who think that government should tax more and undertake more activity. That would reflect the spectrum of opinion on the collection of tax across this city and across this nation. There will never be a level of taxation and a level of government services that everyone will agree on, but we have a democratic process to resolve these issues.
One thing that was very clear through the Leader of the Opposition’s presentation this morning was that this was a contested issue at both the 2012 and 2016 territory elections. The Canberra Liberals have played this card very hard. They played this
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