Page 2977 - Week 08 - Thursday, 15 August 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Detail stage
Schedule 1—Appropriations—Proposed expenditure.
Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate—Part 1.6
Debate resumed from 13 August 2019.
MADAM SPEAKER: I remind members that in debating order of the day No 1, executive business, they may also address their remarks to executive business order of the day No 2.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (10.51): I will start with treasury and revenue matters; I will then move on to some of the vast universe that CMTEDD covers. I will not be able to cover all of the vast universe, however.
I will start with concessions, because the concessions system is vital for improving the fairness of our taxation system. There are, obviously, some issues because the ACT government has only very limited information about a person’s income and wealth. Basically, they have to use the information provided by the commonwealth in the form of concession cards, which is an ongoing issue. I am looking forward to the response from the government on this issue, following my fair fines motion which will occur at the end of next week.
We very much welcome concessions assistance rising by over $7 million, a 10 per cent increase. A $46 per year increase in the utilities concession commenced on 1 July. I know that is not a huge amount of money, but all the people getting it will be people who really need it.
On that note, I very much welcome the government’s new assistance website. It pulls together the various bits of ACT government assistance and it makes it a lot easier for people to find what they are eligible for. Hopefully, in many cases, their friends, service providers and family will point this out to them; nonetheless, once you have done that, you will have a much better chance of finding everything you are entitled to.
I will now move on to tax reform. Clearly, since 2012, tax reform has made important changes like scrapping insurance duty and the move from stamp duty to rates. I note, for those who are interested, that in Domain today there is an article about government taxation revenue in stamp duty as a proportion of total government revenue for the ACT and what the situation is in other states. Interestingly, we are only the second lowest. The Northern Territory is lower. We are almost the same as South Australia and WA, which demonstrates how narrow our taxation base is. We are forced to tax properties as our major thing.
The Greens support the general principles of tax reform, but taxation must stay as fair as possible as reform rolls out. The review that the government has committed to—and I assume it is doing it as we speak—is very timely. The review is essential to balance economic efficiency and fairness. It will be looking at the fairness of the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video