Page 1393 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.40): I rise to support Mr Smyth’s very important bill today, and I welcome the fact that it appears that it will get the support of the Assembly.
There was an easier way that we could have done this. I think it was in relation to last year’s budget, in the reply in budget week, that the Liberal Party first started raising the issue in relation to a cost of living statement. It may have even been the budget before; I would need to check that. But we have called on the government to provide this. They could have done this without legislation. They could have developed any model that was reasonable to give information to the community about the cost of living. They have resisted. It is unfortunate that we have had to have legislation to actually direct a government to care about the cost of living and to have a situation in the budget where they express the real impact on households of their budget and of the decisions that are taken. The government have just completely been playing catch-up on this.
I want to go to why I think they have been so reluctant on this cost of living statement to date. As I say, this is something they could have done in last year’s budget or the budget before. They could have done it without any legislation. It is good that we have been able to force some sort of movement from the government, but let us look at why they have been so reluctant to talk about the cost of living and to give meaningful figures to the community on the cost of living, because their record on the cost of living has been an absolute shocker.
We can go through a whole range of areas where that is true. We know about the feed-in tariff scheme that will add hundreds of dollars a year to the cost of electricity courtesy of the Labor-Greens alliance. We know of the unit tax which will add over $50,000 in tax, in many cases, to the cost of building and buying a unit. That is a cost of living impost which will add to rents, add to the cost of buying a unit, and make it more difficult for Canberra families, not to mention affect one of our most important sectors, the property sector.
We know that the massive blow-out in costs at the Cotter Dam is increasing water bills already. We are all paying more, Canberrans are all paying more, for their water because of this government—first their failure to plan and then their failure to manage the Cotter Dam project. Canberrans are going to pay hundreds of dollars a year extra for their water, courtesy of ACT Labor.
The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, this has not been an issue that rates highly on the government’s agenda. In fact most of their policy decisions have sought to increase the cost of living for Canberra families.
Let us have a look. We know that we have some of the most expensive houses in the country, and amongst the most expensive rents. We have seen electricity prices go up by 75 per cent, and they will go up more as a result—
Mr Barr interjecting—
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