Page 1519 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 July 2020
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We also have taxes to pay for the common good in our neighbourhoods—the parks, the footpaths, the street trees. The million trees that we talked about last sitting week in the Liberals’ motion is a great ambition, but it requires taxes to help pay for it, even if there is a substantial community contribution. These are the sorts of things that make our homes and communities healthier, stronger and more livable.
If we do not pay enough tax, the glue that holds our society together wears thin and eventually breaks down, potentially leaving behind an angry, divided mass of individuals unable to function as a nation or as a community in a time of crisis. Unfortunately, that appears to be what we are seeing in the United States right now. It is somewhere between horrific and depressing.
Mr Coe and the Canberra Liberals need to take a long, hard look at the present situation in our city and our country and our world. We are living through a time where we have just seen how extraordinarily important it is to have a good government and a time which has brought home to almost everybody the reasons why we pay taxes, and why we have a fair taxation system. In this context I am very surprised that Mr Coe is still banging on about tax cuts. It is the wrong policy, and I hope that the Canberra Liberals will urgently reconsider this policy, coming into the next election.
MR GUPTA (Yerrabi) (3.19): I will speak to Mr Coe’s motion to freeze rates for four years. I thank Mr Coe for once again highlighting his lack of understanding of taxation in the ACT. As part of our continuing effort to keep the ACT economy strong in the wake of COVID-19, we will be reducing the amount of revenue we receive from residential, commercial and general rates over this financial year.
General rates will increase by zero per cent, inclusive of the $150 rebate we have already announced. This means that two-thirds of households will see a real reduction in their 2020-21 rates bill compared to the last financial year. Commercial properties will similarly benefit. Over 90 per cent of commercial properties have an average unimproved value of $2 million or less and those properties will also have an average rates increase of zero per cent.
This is in addition to a number of initiatives that the ACT government has introduced, including the rebate of the $2,622 fixed charge for commercial rates in the last quarter of the last financial year, with the aim of helping small and medium enterprises recover from the economic downturn we have seen this year.
Since we are providing rates relief in 2020-21 it is easy to ask why we should not continue. I recently spoke to Dr Andrew Leigh MP, former shadow assistant Treasurer and a professor of economics, about some of the issues that our territory and our nation are facing in 2020, both socially and economically. Dr Leigh told me that the current economic downfall is unique, as its time frame is incredibly compressed and the short-term shock demanded an immediate and targeted response.
When I asked Dr Leigh what he thought about a four-year rates freeze, he responded that it would do permanent damage to the ACT’s finances and ultimately result in a reduction in services in the territory. We have seen as part of this response the
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