Page 3911 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
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The Canberra Liberals—indeed, many people in Canberra—have significant concerns with what the government is proposing. This will have a significant impact on Canberrans. That is the point. The point of this is to change lifestyles. The point of this is to change behaviour. If you accept as a premise that the very intention is to change the way that people live, that is in effect discrediting the lives that Canberrans are living right now.
We on this side of the chamber do not object to the way that Canberrans are living. We do not object to the lifestyles that Canberrans have. The Labor Party and the Greens obviously do. They want to change behaviour. They want to change people’s lifestyles. That is the essence of what is being proposed right now. That is why it is arrogant. That is why this government is so out of touch. Those opposite fundamentally think that the lifestyles that Canberrans have are wrong and should be changed. They think that they should be changed by government policy and manipulation. We on this side of the chamber do not accept that for one minute.
Those opposite think, for some reason, that Canberrans actually enjoy using petrol. They think that Canberrans enjoy using electricity and gas. Nobody enjoys spending $100 to fill up the car with petrol. Nobody enjoys paying $1,200 a year for car registration. The government seems quite willing and quite determined to increase the cost of car ownership. Why is it that those opposite want to increase the cost of car registration?
Government members interjecting—
MR COE: Let us have a look at goal 3F on page 51 of your own strategy:
Consider options for reforming car registration fees to incentivise efficient road use.
Blind Freddy knows that this is yet another way that they intend to use price signals, price levers and all the other jargon to describe what is, in effect, gouging Canberrans. They have been doing it for a long time. If those opposite do not already think that the cost of car registration is an issue in the ACT, they are very disconnected from the Canberra that I know.
The vast majority of people that I know recognise that what this government is doing is simply going to drive up the cost of owning a car. Just over here, people are paying $17 or $18 a day for parking. That is $90 a week. It is $180 of post-tax income per fortnight for parking in the city. That is huge money. It is because of this government, its policies and its greed. I see no reason whatsoever why anybody would have any confidence, as a result of this strategy, that things are going to get any cheaper.
This government seems absolutely determined to appease the Greens through this strategy and every other policy. The Greens seem to control the agenda of this government. If you do not think that is a perception out there in the community, once again that is another indication of just how disconnected members of the Labor Party are. Absolutely everybody in Canberra that I speak to says that the Greens drive the
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