Page 2979 - Week 07 - Thursday, 30 June 2011
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are influenced by government policy, because just one government policy is going to add $200 a year to the cost of electricity.
It is, I think, worth noting and highlighting today, as this budget is being debated, as we deal with Treasury, that tomorrow Canberra families will again pay more. They will again pay much more because this government do not care. This government do not care about the cost of living. They will not do anything about it, either because they are not competent enough or because they do not have the desire to, because their desire to just keep spending and keep pursuing poor policies is greater than their desire to assist families who are struggling with the cost of living.
We fundamentally believe that Canberra families should be given every chance. We cannot do it for them, but we want to give them every chance. We give them every chance by managing our land release and our taxation around property better, so that we do not have constant, ridiculous, over-the-top upward pressure on rents and purchase costs. We do it by pursuing good policies. We do it by restraining spending so that rates do not have to keep going up at such a rapid rate—and the people of Tuggeranong will particularly feel that tomorrow.
There is lots that can be done. But there is no doubt that the Liberal Party will always be the party who stand up for families, and the Liberal Party will always be the party that deliver a lower cost of living compared to what the Labor Party deliver. There is no doubt about that because the Labor Party have such a desire to tax everything they see at the highest possible rate and such an inability to control their spending that the only way that eventually gets paid for is by taxpayers. There is no other way. You can only borrow for so long and, when you borrow, someone is paying for it down the line.
That is fundamental to this budget. It is fundamental to this budget that it increases cost of living pressures on Canberra families. We are going to go and talk to those families, and we have been, and they will say to the government: “You need to do something about this. Your policies need to take account of the pressures that are on us in the suburbs. You can’t ignore this any longer.” The government have reflected how much they ignore it with their response to recommendation 35, which is just a dismissive “Well, we do it.” They do not do it and they have not done it. And we have asked them to do it.
That is why we keep bringing this up year after year, and we will continue to do that, because we will fight for these families. We will fight for the families in our suburbs who are working hard and who just want the opportunity to get on with their lives and not have the government put this crushing burden of cost of living pressures. They have enough from external sources; they do not need the ACT government adding to that significantly. But that is what they are doing through this budget, that is what they are doing with their tax increases, that is what they do when they do not control their spending.
I commend to the Assembly the need for us to look after Canberra families and for us, as an Assembly, to care about their cost of living pressures and to do all we can to lift those burdens from Canberra families.
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