Page 1081 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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Government is serious in its stated desire for public participation. How committed is the Government to its statement that "it is important that every citizen knows that their views will be heard and account taken of their opinions"? So much for the general propositions in the Government's approach.
Let me turn now to some of the details of the draft budget statement. I look at the budget strategy and the question of honouring election promises. In particular, Mr Speaker, I note the Government's restatement of one of its election promises "that individual and household taxation will not rise". The community is entitled to question the Government's good intent, on the basis of this budget statement. I will allude to only three examples. First, in the recurrent budget summary in the budget statement there is an adjustment of an amount of $10.4m resulting from effects of earlier decisions. Part of that $10.4m is attributed elsewhere in the statement, at page 9, to "the adjustment to motor vehicle charges". This no doubt refers to the earlier, pre-budget decision to increase motor registration costs by 25 per cent and compulsory pre-registration testing by 13 per cent, contrary to the Government's election promise.
Secondly, in connection with my earlier comments about getting to the bottom of the rates collection mystery, the keen researcher, once having done so, will discover that many residential ratepayers will be paying increased rates in real dollars, despite the Government's election promise. Indeed, any residential ratepayer whose property valuation recently increased by more than about 12 per cent will find that, even after allowing for the normal increase arising from the 6.9 per cent CPI movement since last year, he or she has suffered a real rates increase. Many ratepayers will fall into this category.
The Government will try to obscure the issue, and has already done so by introducing the increased land valuation which of course is totally irrelevant. The determinants of rating levels are, firstly, the total amount of money determined as being necessary to maintain the city, and, secondly, the rate per dollar on the valuation to be levied. The valuation itself is irrelevant. It must be noted, Mr Speaker, that those ratepayers who experience significant rates increases because of changes in valuations will very often be those who cannot afford them. They will not be the owners, in the terms of the Chief Minister, of opulent houses.
They will often be those on fixed incomes, who have lived in their current houses for many years and whose valuations have risen because of the actions of others. They will be victims of the Government's deliberate decision to renege on a specified and specific election promise not to raise rates for individuals and households. I just quote a couple of examples, Mr Speaker: In Dickson the average valuation has gone up by 19.7 per cent, hardly opulent
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