Page 95 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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Mr Hanson touched on childcare—eight per cent since 2008. We have said: “Why don’t you make some reforms here? Why don’t you actually make some reforms? Why don’t you have some sort of master planning process? Why don’t you have a centralised waiting list?” And I see that the government are coming on board some eight months after we announced it. We have been advocating for these families who are paying more and more because of this government’s policies.
Ms Gallagher again dismissed the issue of water. We pay more for water in the ACT than anywhere else in the country. It has gone up over 100 per cent since 2001. How many people in Canberra do you think have seen their wages go up by 100 per cent since 2001? How many have seen the level of services delivered to them go up by 100 per cent? Yet we have seen the cost of water go up by over 100 per cent, and of course partly as a result of this government’s mismanagement of water, its slowness to react, the cost blowout we have seen in relation to the Cotter Dam, the $240 million cost blowout.
All of these things add up. The Treasurer did not want to stay to listen because she was happy to put out all sorts of things that were not true: “It’s not our fault. It’s not as bad as in other jurisdictions.” Again, on water, she is wrong. She dismissed the rising electricity prices—a 70 per cent increase since 2001.
What does this government want to do with its Greens colleagues? It wants to add to that. It wants to add to those price rises. The prices are going to continue to rise for a number of reasons. The ACT government has a choice: does it add to that burden or does it look to work against that? This government and the Greens have chosen to add to that burden—$225 a year they are going to add over and above all of those other
increases. They have said, “We want a solar feed-in tariff.” It might cost us a few hundred dollars a tonne, but this government is going to add $225 a year to electricity prices for households in an ongoing manner.
You cannot take seriously the protestations from a Treasurer who says, “It’s not our fault and it’s not that bad.” That was the message from Katy Gallagher: “It’s not our fault; it’s not that bad.” But, when it comes to rates, it is your fault. When it comes to water, you influence it. When it comes to the cost of housing in the ACT, it is a direct result of your policies. When it comes to the amount of stamp duty that is charged, when it comes to the massive increase in tax that you are proposing, these are all government policies. We will stand up and say that we will fight to keep the cost of living as low as possible. Can we influence everything? No, we cannot.
But there is a lot that the government through its policies does influence and can influence and directly influences, and on every score it is putting upward pressure rather than downward pressure because it simply does not care.
We have got the Greens with all sorts of policy ideas that cost hundreds of millions of dollars with not a saving in sight. What does that do for the cost of living? Someone eventually has to pay. Someone has to pay. We have seen the rates go up 77 per cent. If we see policies, without savings, that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, we will see the rates continue to skyrocket. They will go up more.
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