Page 2221 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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will deliver better job security and working conditions for our hardworking school cleaners. Transport Canberra and City Services will increase the ratio of permanent staff to contract staff over several years. This year’s budget advances this aim by converting temporary and contract roles within the city presentation unit to permanent positions. We are also working within Access Canberra to convert labour hire contractors to ACT public service staff, giving more security to the workers who are the public face of many of our government services. We do so because we are committed to improving job security for our staff and setting a standard for the ACT workforce.
Budget—rates
MR WALL: My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, have you been contacted by any businesses in Canberra that are struggling to keep up with increases to commercial rates?
MR BARR: I have not had any direct personal approaches. There may have been some emails; I will need to check. I have certainly heard through the media and had a letter or two over the years, particularly related more to revaluation of properties, as has obviously been discussed through the commercial rates review, and we have instituted the beginning of a government response in relation to those questions and highlighted that in the budget papers.
But I note that we have 3,000 more businesses operating in the territory than we did a few years ago. Our stamp duty cuts, our insurance tax cuts and the lifting of the payroll tax free threshold to the highest in the nation, which means 90 per cent of businesses do not pay payroll tax in the ACT, make us a very competitive place to do business, and we are seeing that in the growth in the number of businesses operating in Canberra.
MR WALL: Chief Minister, why are businesses struggling to keep up with the increases in commercial rates, from what you have heard in the media?
MR BARR: There are a range of factors in the broader economy that impact on profitability for business. ACT taxes and charges are a relatively modest part of total business expenditure. We are making the transition away from taxing capital and taxing labour. There are three factors of production: land, labour and capital. Labour is quite mobile; capital is extremely mobile; land is not. The simplest, fairest and most efficient form of taxation available to our level of government is land. That is why we have the lightest taxation in Australia of labour and capital. That is why we have 3,000 more businesses operating in the ACT.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR BARR: That fact is very inconvenient for the Leader of the Opposition and his campaign of mistruths but it is a fact. There are more businesses operating now than there were three years ago. That is a fact.
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