Page 709 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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Land Valuation and Rates
MR JENSEN: Mr Speaker, my question is directed to the Chief Minister. Following the release of the triennial ACT land valuations by the Government and recent statements by the Chief Minister that there will be no rise in rates in real terms, does this mean that there will be an increase in the amount that residents will have to pay compared to this year's rate account?
MS FOLLETT: There are two separate issues here. The first issue is the question of the valuation of ACT land which by law is undertaken every three years. I released the most recent valuation of ACT land which was undertaken up until 1 January 1988 and those valuations had been undertaken over about the preceding 18 months. The result of the land valuation overall was that there had been a general increase on average in the value of ACT residential land of about 12 per cent. In a three-year period that 12 per cent increase is not a huge amount, and in some areas of the ACT the land values actually fell. A study of the documents there would show that in some areas of Tuggeranong and Belconnen the value of people's land had actually fallen.
In regard to individual blocks of land, people have now, I believe, been advised of their valuation; they have received notices of the valuations and notices also of their procedures for appealing against those valuations. But the question of the value of people's land is quite a separate question from the rates which will be levied on that land. The rates themselves or the amounts that people pay are made up by a value in the dollar in accordance with the value of the land.
The Government has not decided on that value in the dollar; that will be undertaken as part of our budget process. But, as Mr Jensen rightly points out, we have given an undertaking not to increase individual household rates and taxes in real terms. In the process of drawing up the budget, we will be keeping to that undertaking.
MR JENSEN: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I am not quite sure whether the Chief Minister directly answered the last part of my question, which was: Will some people be paying more for their rates than they paid this year?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I think that that is a hypothetical question. As I have said, the question of the amount in the dollar has not been decided and - - -
Mr Kaine: It is a matter of whether they will pay more in real dollars; that is the question. Everybody will pay more.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
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