Page 1782 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 May 2010
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global financial crisis and the supposed $85 million cut to GST revenue that we were meant to have suffered. I just want to remind members that, given that Craig James and the CommSec State of the States report is such a well-endorsed document by the ACT Labor government, we need to go back a little and see what they said in January 2010. On page 6 of the January 2010 report, under “Economic Insights”, what does it say about the ACT? It says:
The leader-board of state and territory economies is useful to get a big picture perspective.
The ACT and Tasmania have been insulated from what he calls the US financial crisis. It is no longer a global financial crisis. Let us face it: this is a US financial crisis that has had impacts around the world. But he says the ACT has been insulated from the US financial crisis.
Again, that crutch that the Treasurer has been leaning so heavily on to cover up their economic mismanagement, their inability to control their budget, their ability to spend more than they earn, is knocked away because CommSec, in the report that Ms Porter praised so highly and quoted from so extensively this morning, says: “The Treasurer cannot use the GFC as an excuse for the state of her budget. She has a budget that was insulated from the GFC.”
We all know that there have been effects from the GFC. But in the main, according to CommSec, the document that Ms Porter and the Labor Party quoted from this morning as being such a wonderful source and endorsement for their policies, they also said, “You were insulated,” which brings us back to the economic management of the ACT, which brings us back to the land release program, which brings us back to all of those things that Mr Seselja just finished talking about. It is about how this government is squeezing young homebuyers out of the market, is creating inefficiencies in the market by not putting incentives in place to get older Canberrans to downsize into more appropriate accommodation and, probably worst of all, is affecting renters. Those who cannot afford to buy are probably, in my opinion, the most likely to be affected by this.
What it means is that when you add it to the 10 per cent increase in land rent that the government expects in this budget, what you are seeing are huge impacts on the marketplace. That is a 10 per cent increase in land rent from $95 million to $105 million this year. Some of that, of course, will be growth of the ACT. But basically what you have got is a greedy grab for tax to cover the mismanagement over nine years of the ACT economy. Remember, this is the government that budgeted for deficits at the height of the economic cycle.
I read with great merriment in the paper this morning Mr Stanhope saying, “Yes, but we budgeted for nine surpluses.” It is not true. At the height of the cycle, 2006-07, we were having deficits. We had more money than we knew what to do with but we were having deficits. That is the economic record of this government. They have not managed the economy or the budget of the ACT at all well.
The economy is doing very well. CommSec is right. The economy is doing well. But as some of the recent census reports also said, the business community has no faith in
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