Page 5983 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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commonwealth and, equally, allow the ACT economy to flourish and to encourage innovation.
There is no doubt that for those doing it tough government-imposed charges do create a significant burden. We recently discussed a matter of public importance about targeted assistance. I will repeat some of the points again because I think they are relevant. It is vital that we have assistance measures in place to ensure that those in our community who are doing it really tough are getting that targeted assistance. This is targeted as opposed to general assistance. We should be looking at the primary vehicles that we can be using.
There are of course many general measures that the government should be putting in place to help everyone and to achieve a range of policy outcomes. But when it comes to those most in need, in most cases the only realistic way of ensuring that they are provided for is through targeted assistance measures that we know will make it easier for those people who are struggling.
The Greens are very pleased at the initiatives that we have been able to have implemented. In the area of utilities the Greens were very pleased with the government’s response on energy concessions in the last budget. These were the energy concessions that the Canberra Liberals voted against. My colleague Mr Rattenbury first raised this issue in a motion that was debated in March 2010 on the impact of energy price rises and climate change on low income families. That debate raised concerns about the sort of costs that would be imposed.
ACOSS, the national body, suggests that there are three main reasons that this happens and at least two of them are highly relevant to low income families. The first is that low income earners spend a greater proportion of their total weekly household budget on energy and water, essential services for which prices are inelastic and for which price increases can be blunt.
We really need to be looking at how we can improve any of those schemes or assistance. That is why we were so pleased with the utilities improvements. It meant they will also keep up to date, and that there is a CPI indexation measure that has been imposed on them. That was significant. As was mentioned in Mr Barr’s speech, I think there is an extra $131 or so per annum to assist those households.
What we have also done while we have been here is to put more money into energy efficiency. If we have more energy efficient houses in our public housing stock, for instance, that is not only good for the tenant, because it is a nicer place to live, but also it is more affordable for that tenant because they will have lower energy bills.
We also very much want to see more money, and have pushed for more money, in public transport. The Canberra Liberals hate public transport. They have made it very clear that they think it is an enormous waste of money. Our point is that it is in fact an incredibly important part of our transport mix. If we do have a great, strong, regular and reliable transport system then people will have that choice. They will have a good range of choices that they can make. For many people, having that second car, paying for that second car—the rego, the petrol, the maintenance, the parking and so forth—
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