Page 2251 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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Today I also announce that in order to provide certainty for business and households, we will bring stage 3 of tax reform forward by one year to commence in 2021-22 and set average general rates increases for households and over 90 per cent of commercial properties in the territory at 3.75 per cent.
This follows from the government’s decision to set average rates at zero for the current fiscal year 2020-21, which, along with our $150 pandemic rates rebate to every household delivered in this quarter, means that around 110,000 households will see an actual rates reduction this year.
We will continue to reduce stamp duty in every budget. The next round of reductions will be targeted at affordable owner-occupier purchases and at stimulating affordable housing construction by reducing stamp duty on lower value land, off-the-plan units and lower value properties.
This economic and fiscal update, and the economic recovery and jobs plan that I release today, demonstrate the government’s determination to protect Canberra jobs as we recover from the pandemic. We have a long way to go, but this is another essential step as Canberra emerges from this once-in-a-century public health and economic shock stronger and more together as a community. I commend the plan and update to the Assembly.
I present the following papers:
ACT Jobs and Economic Recovery Plan.
Economic and Fiscal Update—
August 2020.
Ministerial statement, 27 August 2020.
Financial Management Act—Supply Instrument and Authorisation of Payments—Explanatory Notes—2020-2021, dated 24 August 2020, made pursuant to sections 7 and 37.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the ministerial statement.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (3.09): We have just witnessed a blatant re-announcement of projects already committed to but not delivered by Labor. It is a re-announcement dressed up as vision. Worse, there are some things, like the Canberra Hospital upgrade, that have been on the cards for a decade and still will not be delivered for years to come, if at all, under ACT Labor. In the 10 years since he became Treasurer, Mr Barr’s economic management has taken the ACT from $473 million in the black to a projected $4 billion in the red; and all this before COVID hit.
The ACT should have been in a very strong position to weather an economic storm. Every year this Labor-Greens government takes more and more from Canberrans
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