Page 2179 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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But, having been asked the question, it does give me the opportunity to repeat, as I have repeated essentially ad nauseam, that the current data available from the Commonwealth Grants Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics is that the ACT is not a high taxing jurisdiction. According to the Commonwealth Grants Commission, in its latest advice on comparative taxation rates around Australia, the ACT’s taxation effort is essentially the same as—
Mr Mulcahy: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was quite specific in talking about the tax rates in the territory being higher than they ever have been before in the ACT. I did not ask for a dissertation on comparative tax rates.
MR SPEAKER: No. You asked the question: when can the people of the ACT expect tax relief? That is the question.
MR STANHOPE: According to the Commonwealth Grants Commission, our taxation effort is essentially the same as that in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. According to the Commonwealth Grants Commission, our taxation effort is actually lower than that in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics, in its most recent data available to government, indicates that the total of state and local government taxation in the Australian Capital Territory is $2,386 per capita, which is lower than the national average of $2,594 per capita. The ACT’s per capita state and local government taxation is lower than the state and local government taxation of New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia. So there is the end to the furphy.
According to the commonwealth, through the Commonwealth Grants Commission and through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we tax at below the national average. We tax lower than some jurisdictions in Australia and we tax at essentially the same rate as the majority—indeed, the same rate as our neighbours.
This, of course, is the crux of the decisions which my government has taken over the last two years. Our revenue raising effort is around the national average, as revealed by the Commonwealth Grants Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, since self-government. Actually, the Productivity Commission, in every one of its annual state of government reports, reveals that expenditure effort in the ACT is, of course, somewhere between 20 and 25 per cent above the national average.
There is the simple equation. The Commonwealth Grants Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal that taxation effort in the ACT is essentially at around average—in fact, it is just lower than the national average—yet our expenditure effort, of course, is 20 to 25 per cent above the national average.
To redress that glaring gap between expenditure and revenue, this government has taken the decisions that no other government since self-government is prepared to take to bring the two into balance. That is the essential philosophy underpinning last year’s budget, repeated in this year’s budget, which, as a result of decisions my government took, has restored this community’s bottom line and balance sheet to an
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