Page 861 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
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week. We are asking that the government address the concerns that are being expressed by those on this side of the house and by the community at large, especially in this period when we have had massive increases in taxes. This money does not grow on trees. People are having to find money for extra charges and taxes every day of the week.
On Sunday I heard the cliche about working families from Mr Rudd. I was sitting there with my wife and I said, “What a cliche.” Fortunately, the reporter said, “Mr Rudd, can you tell me what a working family is?” He said, “It is the battlers, the people struggling to make ends meet.” He had just announced an energy scheme where people earning up to a quarter of a million dollars per household would qualify. These are the working families!
Mr Speaker, you represent the northern electorate. I am not sure how many households you have up there in the quarter of a million dollar income category that you would call working families, battlers. But frankly, I am not losing a lot of sleep about people who are pulling in that much money. I say, “Pay for your own energy conservation measures.”
We need to get serious about looking after the people of Canberra who are struggling with the tax bills that are being imposed because of the costs of running this administration. Those costs are going up and they are hurting families. I know that we have higher incomes here and that there have been good capital gains and capital growth. But what happens at the end of the day when people get hit with a utilities tax, when Actew goes to the ICRC and says it wants to pass on charges, when Telstra or Optus say they want to impose charges because they have been put on by the territory government, when ambulance charges go up, with the fire and emergency services levy, or when the rates go up? Not unreasonably, people are going to say, “Well, hang on a minute; let us look very closely at the expenditure of this territory government.” As soon as these questions are raised, the government goes on the back foot; it is defensive: “It is outrageous. What does the Liberal Party think it is doing?”
We know there are rules and regulations in the public sector, but we need to be satisfied. These issues are outstanding. People might say, “Why care about cash advances of $1,600?” The reason I care—the reason I care as a member—is that I happen to know that such an advance is prohibited under the audit rules of the territory unless it occurs when someone is out of the country. If it happens when people are working in the ACT, serious questions ought to be asked. One question ought to be asked of the Treasurer himself: “What is going on in your agency that caused that to happen?” You can ensure that you do not have cash advances on cards. You can block those sorts of facilities. Mr Quinlan said that when he left the country he would get a card that was taken out of a safe while he was overseas and taken from him when he got home. You can put controls in place and still do the job and satisfy people who are concerned.
At the present time, ACT families and residents are being forced by the government to tighten their discretionary spending to pay government charges. At this time it is therefore especially important to receive assurances from the government that the territory—its public sector—are doing the same.
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