Page 5971 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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We have seen real growth in taxation of 50 per cent over those 10 years, which equates to an increase of $1.6 billion in revenue. Taxation per capita has grown 76 per cent since Labor was first elected, which is the second highest in the country and equates to an increase of $1,696 per person. That is not what they pay; that is, the increase that they have experienced since Labor came to office—$1,696 per person.
What is worse is that we see that this government continues to hit people in the suburbs in entirely unequal ways. Rates have gone up by 75 per cent in 10 years, but what has happened in individual suburbs like Chisholm, Spence, Banks and Charnwood? We have seen increases of 130 per cent in Chisholm, 147 per cent in Spence in my electorate, 151 per cent in Banks, and in my electorate, in one of the most disadvantaged suburbs in Canberra, 158 per cent in Charnwood.
Let us look at rent prices. What shall we see? A 68 per cent increase in rents. Rents have gone up 68 per cent in just 10 years, which now gives us, the people of Canberra, the second highest average weekly rent in the country. This equates to $500 per week, which is an increase of an unaffordable $190 a week paid in rent. The average Canberran who is a renter is paying $500 a week.
This cannot continue, because the average Canberran will refuse to allow this to be dictated to them by the ACT government and particularly by a Chief Minister whose only solution for them is to “turn off the Foxtel for a while”. That is her financial advice to Canberra families. When you consider that something less than 20 per cent of Canberra families have Foxtel, it is hardly good advice for the average Canberran.
But all of this would not be so bad if the Gallagher-Barr-Hunter government was spending its money on worthwhile projects that raised the standard of living and eased the burdens on Canberra families. But do they do that? No, they do not. They spend their money instead on things like the $26 million for the Jon Stanhope memorial arboretum that was allocated in the last budget, $7½ million on buses that have no passengers or $20 million on the duplication of the GDE which was delivered seven years late and at more than twice the budget. Then, of course, there is the house of hubris—a $432 million edifice and one that has had at the very best a very scrappy cost-benefit analysis. Canberra families will be paying for that for a very long time into the future.
All of this can be contrasted with the ignominious comments offered by the Greens leader, Ms Hunter, that “the cost of living is a vexed issue” but that Canberra people should consider themselves lucky because “millions of people live on less than $2 a day”. That is extraordinarily patronising and it goes to show just how out of touch the Greens are with these issues and with their electorates. That is probably because for the most part members do not live in their electorates. So while the average Canberran should count themselves lucky, according to Ms Hunter, no solutions are offered to help those who need a little bit more than $2 a day to get by in a first world city. Instead the ACT government offers up more programs, more economic white elephants and more ACT government taxes and charges that burden the average Canberra family with even more financial imposition.
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