Page 1398 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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So we need to look at who is being impacted and we need to ensure that we do not just have a superficial statement in the budget. If this is intended just to be a table up the front that says, “The costs of certain taxes and charges have gone up by CPI,” or WPI, so that others can say, “That is not okay,” I think that is a little bit superficial in its approach. We need to look at something a little more substantive, something that truly assesses the impacts on a range of households, a range of individuals, and also looks at what assistance already is being provided or where we might be able to enhance that assistance.
One of the things I would put down there is that we know that in the last budget we got a considerable, significant, increase in the energy concessions for many Canberrans. Part of the issue there was that it had not been indexed over the years and had fallen way behind where it needed to be. That gap was filled and that concession scheme is now being indexed. They are the sorts of things we need to be looking at—not just the increase that might happen, because increases will happen. No government can deliver services, deliver programs, deliver supports, without getting in income, and that income will be derived from taxes and charges. And I would defy any party in this place to say that we can deliver all of those in the way and to the quality that most Canberrans expect, without getting income, and that income, as I said, from taxes and charges.
The Greens will support an adjournment after the in-principle debate so that we have time to really look at these issues, at how we could put in place something that is meaningful, something that really does give us an accurate picture of the impacts of budgetary decisions on different types of households and different individuals across our community.
It is no good gathering just a bunch of figures from budget paper 3 plus a couple of others, putting them in a table and thinking that that is a proper analysis. It is not. We need to look at something that really gets to the heart of the issues that I think Mr Smyth has put on the table, and that is: how do budget decisions that might be around increases in certain taxes and charges impact? As I said, we need to look at the other side of the ledger, which is what assistance is being provided to these households as well, so that we can make a thorough and a proper analysis.
As I said, the Greens will be supporting this bill in principle and we look forward to the discussions that will happen in the next few weeks to see how we might amend the bill before us so that we end up with a meaningful measure in the budget papers.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (12.02), in reply: I thank members for their in-principle support for the bill today. I would just like to go to a few of the issues that were raised. It is interesting what a long time it is from 22 June last year when everybody but the Liberal Party was against this notion of having a cost of living statement. So I welcome the sea change that is occurring among the Greens and the Labor Party on this issue, because it is important that we understand what it is that we do to households.
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