Page 3099 - Week 10 - Thursday, 18 October 2007
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The figure that was actually promised was that the base fee would increase by 100 per cent over three years and there would be other increases such as—I don’t know the exact formula, but it was either CPI or AWE, something like that.
There it is. The base figure, that is, the fee that applied during 2004-05 would be increased by 100 per cent. The minister also tried to build in additional increases—I assume on the basis of WPI, not AWE, but that was not an issue at the time—or, indeed, incorporating the CPI, but that is not correct either. So we have a formal government document that says the increase will be 100 per cent, and that was supported by an answer from the minister.
I think it is important to focus on the actual numbers. There are three categories of business or, broadly, retail areas in which these fees apply. The primary area is places like Civic, Manuka and Kingston; the secondary area includes the Woden town centre and the Belconnen town centre, Dickson, the balance of Civic and Yarralumla, and the tertiary area is all the other areas—so places like Fyshwick. Different fees apply in each category. Fees for the primary area are the highest; fees for the tertiary area are the lowest.
Consider as an example the fee for tertiary areas. At the start of the process, that is, in 2004-05, the base fee was $21.40. This is the fee charged per square metre of public area on which cafes place chairs and tables on the pavement outside their premises. On 1 July 2005, this fee went from $21.40 to $28.90. On 1 July 2006, this fee went from $28.90 to $38.40, and on 1 July this year, this fee became $51.05. Now, any primary school child can work out that the sum of these increases is an overall increase of 139 per cent over the base over three years. It is a similar story for the fees in the primary and secondary retail areas.
I do not know anything about the Hargreaves elementary school of mathematics. The minister said on WIN TV that the percentage increases summed 101 per cent; therefore the increase was 101 per cent. Well, that is just wrong, Mr Speaker. It is wrong, minister. You fail to understand that you have not calculated the percentage increases on the original base, as they should have been—as was promised. Rather, you have calculated the second and third per cent increases on the latter, higher amounts. Self-evidently, this results in an outcome that is far more than 100 per cent.
I went to a normal school where in mathematics we were taught and we learnt that to increase something by 100 per cent was to double it. To increase something by 140 per cent does not double it. That means that $21.40 should, in fact, become $42.40 over three years. We think that increase is too large anyway, but 21 becomes 42, not 51. So what do we have here? We have a devious minister who wants to increase taxes by more than promised, a minister who does not understand simple mathematics or a minister who has been snowed by his department? I am not sure which is correct; perhaps all three. I hesitate to describe the minister as a goose, Mr Speaker—one of his favourite descriptors—but I suspect that would be insulting to geese.
What I do know is that proprietors of outdoor cafes are being ripped off by a rapacious government that is intent on grabbing as much revenue as possible from
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