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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 159 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

I finish by asking how this Assembly could pass a motion that costs $400,000 that could be spent on health, education, buses, things that are desperately needed in this city, when it achieves absolutely no benefit to the ratepayers or to the people of Canberra. I do not believe that that is an acceptable approach. I do not believe that that would be this Assembly acting in the best interests of the people of Canberra. If it did mean that somehow this would affect the revenue the Government was going to get and that somehow people would pay less rates, maybe I could understand it; but it does not. It does not change any of that; it just means that the people of Canberra will pay an unnecessary bill for a large amount of money, at no benefit to them, at a time when we could use that money on lots of other much better things.

MR MOORE (5.39): Mr Speaker, I have listened to the arguments on the rates issue. I recognise that, if we could find $400,000, it would be a very important thing to spend that $400,000. When the issue was first raised, my immediate reaction was that of course we should do the 1997 valuation; we should be doing every valuation. The Chief Minister asked me to reconsider that and to take a briefing. I had two briefings from her department on this issue. They were very thorough briefings, and I must say that they made the decision that much more difficult. These decisions, when there are very good arguments on both sides, are always the ones that are most difficult. In the end, I think I have been persuaded by the call from Auditor-General after Auditor-General that we should have annual valuations, not just in the ACT but in the States. In quite a number of States this has been the case. It was confirmed for me in my briefing that it had been the case, and I think it is appropriate that we do not break this nexus. We have the system of annual valuations in place now, and we should retain that annual valuation system.

If the argument for the saving of $400,000 was one that could be sustained, I think it would be appropriate for the Government to come back to the Assembly, since they are putting a new rates system in place. It is one that I have been very supportive of, and we should deal with this as an issue in itself. If we can manage without having a valuation every fourth year and the results are the same, and therefore over a 12-year period we can save over $1m, perhaps we should look at that as a system. But, as an ad hoc one-off, to say that we can save $400,000 by not doing a valuation, I think, is unacceptable.

As I said, this was not an easy decision for me; but, in the end, that is the decision that I believe is most appropriate and the one that is in the best interests of the community as a whole. It is not just the $400,000 we look at when we are judging what are the best interests of the community as a whole. We are very conscious of that as an important factor, but to ensure that the systems are in place, are appropriate and are seen to be appropriate is also very important. Mr Speaker, I shall be supporting the motion.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (5.42): If I could make a brief contribution, Mr Speaker, I think Mr Moore's speech stopped slightly short of the crucial issue.

Mr Moore: Because I said I would vote to support the motion?

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, that was fairly crucial; but the part I wanted to hear about was how this was in the best interests of the community. Now that we have a three-year average on which rates are based, how one particular year's figures are particularly important in that process escapes me.

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