Page 2041 - Week 07 - Thursday, 17 June 1993
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of court provision. The draft Bill is accompanied by an explanatory statement which gives details of the Bill and explains which provisions deal with the relevant recommendations of the royal commission. To sum up, Madam Speaker, the amendments contained in this draft Bill will play a crucial role in the implementation of the Government's response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It is important that members and the general community take time to examine this Bill and comment on it.
Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries) adjourned.
RATES AND LAND TAX (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
Debate resumed from 15 June 1993, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (3.45): The Bill presented by the Treasurer the day before yesterday is in fact a simple one. It merely amends the Rates and Land Tax Act 1926 to determine the levels of general rates to be levied on residential, commercial and rural properties for 1993-94; and it varies the basis for the levying of land tax for that same year - something that I presume you can expect to see every year while we are trying to balance our budget in the ACT. Along with that Bill, the Treasurer announced a few other increases in fees and charges, but of course she has not by any means announced all of the increases that the Government intends to put into place over the next year. I am sure that we will hear about the rest of them later. Of course, the question arises: How much later?
The changes proposed by the Treasurer, in themselves, are perhaps somewhat innocuous, although they reflect the sheer panic being experienced by the Government in dealing with their budget for 1993-94. In hard economic times, with high levels of unemployment, reducing retail turnover, stagnant car sales statistics, high levels of business failure and personal bankruptcy, we might have expected that the Government would restrict increases in rates and land taxes to the absolute minimum. Yet, with the CPI at around 2 per cent, the rates on residential properties are to increase by 8.7 per cent on average; and land tax, as it relates to commercial properties, is to increase by 50 per cent - from one to 1.5 per cent - on those properties you consider as residential properties.
Ms Follett: Ninety-three per cent are under $100,000.
MR KAINE: Yes, that is a 50 per cent increase. The media and others have already made some comment about some of these charges. People bearing the burden of these additional imposts will, I guess, make their own judgments about their fairness and the social justice inherent in them. One has to assume that the Government is clearly desperately searching for every possible dollar that it can rake up, irrespective of whether it is justified, whether it is fair or whether it is socially just. I am sure that my colleagues here, in their comments in this debate, will speak further about that.
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