Page 2217 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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teachers who are already registered and who wish to renew their current registration. Teachers must be recognised as highly qualified professionals. ACT teachers want to be part of a high-status profession that values excellence and has the confidence of the community. This requires that registered teachers have suitable academic teaching qualifications, a requirement which is achieved through this bill.
Building the professional standing of ACT teachers and enhancing the community’s confidence in the teaching profession through professional regulation is a key purpose of the TQI Act. It is important that the government supports the professionalisation of the teacher workforce and safeguards the quality of the teaching profession in the ACT. It is important that the government can adequately plan for the workforce needs of schools. The ACT community expressed its view, in the future of education consultation, that teachers are the most important part of a child’s school experience, consistent with well-established research evidence, and the bill makes important steps to respond in kind.
Debate (on motion by Mr Wall) adjourned to the next sitting.
Sitting suspended from 12.09 to 2.00 pm.
Questions without notice
Budget—rates
MR COE: My question is to the Treasurer. Minister, are you aware of any Canberrans that are suffering hardship because of your increases to residential rates?
MR BARR: Yes, the government is aware that increases in rates put some financial pressure on some sections of the community, and we have in place a range of measures to address that, including access to concessions and deferral of payments as well as a range of individualised and tailored circumstances where any ratepayer who is experiencing financial difficulty can engage with the revenue office in relation to how rates may be paid—there is a great degree of flexibility in annual, quarterly, monthly, fortnightly payments—in order to meet the individual circumstances of ratepayers. We recognise, through our concession schemes, that further government assistance can be provided to assist those who may be particularly asset rich but income poor.
MR COE: Treasurer, how many households in Canberra will see their rates increase in the next financial year?
MR BARR: Most. Some will receive very modest increases, or potentially a decrease, depending on the respective valuation of their properties. I would note that this is no different from every other year in the history of the city. Rates have gone up under every government, conservative or Labor, in the history of Canberra. There is no world in which rates have not gone up each year. There are, of course, differences in the level of increase from year to year and from property type to property type. As a result of the tax reforms that we have been progressively introducing, other taxes and charges either have been abolished or are going down.
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