Page 2182 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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to surpass Western Australia?” We will do that, of course, when we get our uranium export licence, perhaps, or find our first iron ore mine, or perhaps when the wool clip comes in or the wheat crop is harvested. We are doing extremely well and I am proud of it.
I will happily debate or engage with any business representative organisation in this town that has a concern with the way in which this economy is performing at the moment. We stand ready to work with the business community, but little is to be gained, in the environment we are currently in, with the strength of this economy against every indicator, to continue to pick at this government as a government with a lack of commitment—having presided for six years—to produce. At the end of that you can say it is nothing to do with you. If it is nothing to do with us, why ask the question? You obviously think it is to do with us or you would not have asked the question.
Having asked the question “what are we going to do to ensure a strong economy?” you should have a look at our record. Go to the Commonwealth Grants Commission, go to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and research the indicators, which are myriad, of organisations produced in relation to the ACT. We saw the latest yesterday. According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia, Peter Blackshaw’s organisation, who has the best housing affordability in Australia at the moment? It is the ACT by a country mile. Just compare the performance. According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia yesterday—and who am I to criticise or doubt or contradict it?—the best housing affordability index in Australia is the Australian Capital Territory. If Craig Sloan or the business council have a specific of where the ACT economy is not performing the best in Australia, I would like to know what it is. (Time expired.)
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Smyth?
MR SMYTH: Minister, what actions are you taking to grow an innovative private sector in the ACT, and broaden the narrow tax base that you so often lament?
MR STANHOPE: I think the question was essentially around a low tax base, the same question that Mr Mulcahy asked. We do have a narrow tax base, and it is quite a remarkable achievement for this government, with such a narrow tax base, that we still only tax essentially national average levels of taxation. It is quite a remarkable achievement. It is a remarkable achievement that in an economy with as narrow a base as ours we still manage to restrict our revenue effort to just below the national average. As I just revealed in the figures from the Commonwealth Grants Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, our revenue effort is just below the national average and, indeed, lower than our neighbours. It is a remarkable achievement for the Australian Capital Territory that our revenue effort, in other words, the level of ACT, state and local government taxation, is less than it is in New South Wales.
This is another thing we see from time to time. You can pick any particular tax or rate and you can ask why is the ACT higher than New South Wales in relation to this specific tax? Of course, you can do that, but that is a reflection of the narrowness of
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