Page 5973 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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on Ms Burch’s watch the increase in the cost of childcare has outstripped the rise in CPI by almost 200 per cent.
We all know in this place these costs are going to continue to rise. The Productivity Commission says that on an Australia-wide basis they could rise by as much as 15 per cent. If that was translated into the ACT we would see another $60 a week impost per child in the ACT. I do not know about you, Madam Assistant Speaker Le Couteur, but $60 a week is a lot more than your average cup of coffee. I do not know where Minister Burch gets her coffee from.
What about the change of use tax that we have talked about before? For those who are dreaming of owning their own home, the change of use tax is another impediment to doing so. These charges of up to $150,000 will be passed on to young people and young families who hope to own their own home or those who struggle to keep their head above water in the rental market.
One has to ask whether this ACT government really believes in aspiration. Families all across the ACT only want what is best for them and their community. This is in stark contrast to the Labor Party and the Greens. At every juncture, at every opportunity, this government and their Greens partners put up hurdles in the form of taxes and charges that we, the people of Canberra, can no longer afford to pay.
Canberra suffers these increases at the same time as we see the core business of the government continue to be neglected. Canberra is now the home of the worst waiting times for elective surgery and some of the worst emergency department waiting times in the country—twice as bad here as they are across the border in New South Wales. Now the Chief Minister will refute these figures in secretive notes that she keeps to herself as Canberra deals with the lowest GP numbers per capita and the worst bulk-billing rates in the country. It is a health system in crisis as we see more and more investigations, accusations and threatened legal actions.
We have had 23 closed schools, further adding to the cost of living as families are forced to spend more to send their children to schools that are further away. Minister Barr can be proud of his attempts at cost shifting to Canberra families. That is entirely what happened in relation to school closures.
Canberrans will no longer stand for it. Canberrans simply cannot afford to stand for it any longer. The pockets of the average Canberra citizen are only so deep, and as Ministers Gallagher and Barr drive their hands further into the pockets of all Canberra citizens eventually they will rise up and say, “Stop.”
This ACT Labor-Greens coalition government needs to do more than call on Canberrans to think themselves lucky that they are not living on $2 a week or simply suggest that we should buy a cup of coffee less a week or unsubscribe to Foxtel. The imposition of taxes and charges on Canberra families is unsupportable. The Canberra Liberals are the only people in this place who are prepared to stand up and point to the truth of the matter—that the impact of ACT government taxes and charges is an unreasonable burden on Canberra families, who pay more and get less.
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