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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 1609 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

It is really concerning when we see from this Government the argument put, when it suits them, that because New South Wales does something therefore we should. It says we should get in line with New South Wales, as if that is somehow an argument of substance on important issues to the community. Occasionally it might well be of some importance, but it is very concerning to see how often it is used to support policy initiatives of this Government which really need a much stronger argument than that. It is rather insulting, in fact, that that argument is offered.

I believe, considering the information, that the Government has basically taken the easy way out without examining other funding arrangements. There has been considerable community concern, as other members have said, particularly from the elderly. I recall that in the Estimates Committee the Council on the Ageing expressed concerns on behalf of their membership about the impost of additional insurance costs and what that would mean for them. It would mean, for many of them, that they could no longer afford to insure.

The Insurance Council reports that average residential premiums of $500 would increase by $100, and a business premium of the same value would increase by $200. Furthermore, it is reported that up to 31 per cent of Australians have no household insurance, and up to 43 per cent of those insured are significantly underinsured. In business, 20 per cent have no insurance, and 50 per cent are significantly underinsured.

If the Government wants to raise taxes it should be up front about it. The Government should have looked at a tax that was applied to all home owners. Considering these statistics, it would have been considerably less for individual households if that had been the case, as everyone would have been contributing.

Naturally, one thinks of an increase in rates. Even though this would be fair and the individual burden would be less, there is obviously no way this Government would look at such a proposal because they are continually telling us that they would not support an increase in rates. That is why, I guess, there is such outrage in the community about this. It is in fact, as Mr Kaine said, an increase on the community. It is a tax. It is a sneaky way of raising revenue, clothed in the rhetoric of a levy on business, as if it is not going to have any consequences for members of the community.

It is very interesting, Mr Speaker, to see how, when it suits the Government, they will hypothecate funding measures to a particular outcome. It is interesting to see how that is done by governments and how they try to make a tax more saleable. I read a book on gaming or gambling in the United States where they have done that a lot. They have tied revenue from gambling to things like education. In a way they are co-opting groups of the community because they feel that they need that revenue for education, but they are not actually supportive of the source of the revenue. It is a tactic that is being used by governments around the world more and more.

This Bill is not quite as extreme as that, but the Government is implying that if we oppose this we are not going to have these basic services, these emergency services; that we need this levy to achieve them, as other members have pointed out. Most members of the community thought that was a pretty fundamental service that would come to them from Consolidated Revenue through the normal revenue-raising measures of government.

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