Page 3390 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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That is $22 million in toto, just $5 million above the $17 million that the Liberal Party would rip out of the coffers of the ACT today. There is the equation, and when put to Mr Mulcahy by Mr Solly this morning, “Well, what would you prefer? Would you prefer to proceed with your utilities tax and take this money out of the ACT coffers?”—
Mrs Dunne: It is not a valid either/or question.
Mr Pratt: No, it isn’t.
MR STANHOPE: It is. It is an equation.
Mrs Dunne: No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t.
MR STANHOPE: You cannot cut taxes without addressing, with some intellectual honesty, what services you would proceed not to deliver. This is something Mr Mulcahy avoided this morning. When asked directly by Mr Solly, he said, “Oh, look, I’m not going to get into that”. Mr Solly asked which of these $22 million worth of services would Mr Mulcahy cut? Is it the indigenous drug rehabilitation facility? Is it support for indigenous children at school? Is it for women affected by sexual violence or violence? Is it welfare officers for our public schools? Is it for more services for sufferers of cancer at the Canberra Hospital? Which of these would Mr Mulcahy not have proceeded with? In response to those questions, Mr Mulcahy said, “I’m not going to get into that. I’m just going to cut taxes because I believe the people of Canberra are telling me that they want tax cuts.”
Mr Mulcahy believes Canberrans do not want more services. He believes the responsibility and duty of government is to deal first with tax cuts and then the priorities should be that, if there are any services that need to be delivered after cuts, subject to the state of the budget, of course, they will be looked at then. He just wants to get those few extra dollars in the pocket. The opposition is not worrying about meeting emerging needs. It is worrying about just seeing if it can buy its way into government. It wants to buy its way into government in this particular community with the promise of a tax cut.
Never forget in any debate about this the huffing and the puffing. You only have to go back to the last budget debate around the position put by every member of the Liberal Party of what true service was. The humbug is now revealed when Mr Mulcahy says, “Well, it’s not true service. It is not pure GFS, you can’t count it”. A Liberal Party in government will not adjust the budget to take into account the 7.5 per cent, or the long-term average, return on investments. A Liberal government will not do that. It would use pure GFS. Go back and look at Mr Stefaniak’s comments in the budget debate around the true nature of the surplus.
Look at the comments over a year from Mr Mulcahy, “We won’t do that. This is dishonest. It’s not a real surplus. It’s not real money. You can’t spend it.” All of a sudden, we get the promise, a month ago, “A hundred extra hospital beds in the next two years.” That will $56 million a year. “Let’s abolish the utilities tax.” That is $17 million a year. There is your $70 million.
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