Page 645 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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I have told the Assembly before about some officials who came to my office—this was part of the city heart levy, another one of these great initiatives—and said to me, “We are going to empower people to spend their money.” It is individuals who make money, not governments. When governments embark on these taxation and spending measures, it is public money they are spending.
We can only speculate on the lost opportunities for private production consumption and savings that have followed from the government’s increase in taxation. Much of this increase has been in general rates and the fire and emergency services levy that is levied on households. It is clear that a substantial extra tax burden has been placed on home ownership. This has economic ramifications that affect all of Canberra, and it is not good news for potential home buyers. This government has not solved its spending problems. It has not turned over a new leaf. (Time expired.)
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (4.02): Mr Speaker, I must say that I was very pleased to see this matter of public importance listed today for discussion. It is a very important matter because it gets to the heart of an issue that I have been seeking to address over the last two weeks, and that is, of course, the implications for the ACT community of a Liberal government proceeding with the tax cuts which Mr Mulcahy, in his address just now, indicated a Liberal government would not support.
This is an important debate. We have, once again, had the shadow Treasurer giving us a full dissertation on the taxes, the tax regimes and the charges that a Liberal government will not support. This is an important debate which is at the moment very much at the heart of an election campaign in New South Wales, with the Leader of the Opposition there essentially employing exactly the same tactic that Mr Mulcahy says the Liberal Party will employ here in an election campaign and which they will pursue in government—that is, that a Liberal government will not support and will abolish the emergency services levy. We have heard that here most particularly from the shadow spokesman, and Mr Mulcahy in his speech today endorsed that position.
Since coming to government we have increased expenditure on emergency services by more than $20 million. We have increased expenditure on emergency services by 46 per cent since coming to government. Mr Mulcahy now bewails the fact that we are not hypothecating the emergency services levy to emergency services. It is not a practice that we particularly follow. Mr Mulcahy, of course, will not be hypothecating the emergency services levy to emergency services either because his party will abolish it.
That then, of course, raises immediately the question: what or where will the Liberal Party take the $20 million that will be available through the emergency services levy, which it will not receive? It talks about there being not enough resources for emergency services, it talks about the pity of not hypothecating the emergency services levy to emergency services, and then says, “But in any event, we will abolish it.” So that is $20 million less there.
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