Page 2096 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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This brings us to homelessness. Canberra has a very serious homelessness problem. Yes, I do agree with Mr Coe that the ACT government could be doing more to solve it. I am sure that members have all seen people who are sleeping rough within a few metres of this building. They are only the most visible victims of homelessness; there are many couch surfers, many people sleeping in their cars and many people staying in shelters.
What is Mr Coe’s solution to this problem? It is an interesting one. It is “halt tax increases”. I am not quite sure how freezing government revenue is going to solve homelessness. In the real world that the government’s budget is framed in, if you have a revenue freeze, you are going to end up with expenditure freezing and so-called efficiency dividends. Fixing homelessness is going to require more government spending, not less.
In conclusion I will be supporting the ALP’s amendment rather than what I think was a stunt motion attacking a budget that had not even been released when the motion was written.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (11.16): Canberrans are becoming increasingly worried about the costs of day-to-day living, and are not getting any value for money from this Labor-Greens government. If you live in Tuggeranong, the situation is worse, as was clearly illustrated by an ABC article on the government’s budget yesterday, labelling Tuggeranong amongst the losers of this year’s budget.
The sad reality is that Tuggeranong has been bottom of the list for quite some time under this government. The government have had 18 years—18 years to get the policy settings right, 18 years to manage the territory budget. Yet we still see deficit and rates tripling as we continue to try and keep up the pace of the spendathon that Mr Barr has taken the territory on.
In 2012 the Canberra Liberals said that under Labor rates would triple. That was labelled as scaremongering at the time. However, this very grim prophecy has and is continuing to be reality for many home owners in Canberra. The aspiration of home ownership for many Canberrans is rapidly becoming a pipe dream, and it is dramatically out of reach for many. For renters, the story is the same. Canberra is one of the most expensive cities in the country in which to rent, overtaking Sydney for the second quarter in a row, according to the Domain national housing report.
Top of mind for most Tuggeranong residents I speak to is the cost of living pressures that they are facing. They are seeing household bills increase faster and faster and are struggling to keep pace and make ends meet.
In 2018 the average electricity bill in Canberra was $423 more than across the border in New South Wales and $621 more than the average Victorian bill. Canberra now has the fourth highest electricity prices in the country, behind the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania. Reports from the Australian Energy Market Commission found that 12.7 per cent of the average Canberra power bill goes to paying for this government’s renewable energy targets, the highest proportion paid in
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