Page 1780 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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Canberrans understand their household bills and that Jon Stanhope or Katy Gallagher or Andrew Barr telling them that they are doing well, telling them that they have never had it so good, telling them that Canberra is really an affordable place for them to be, does not make it so.
When they see their household budgets getting tighter, when they see the prices of everything that they need going up well above their ability to pay—and they see this government doing it through their policies, directly through their taxes and charges; the people of the ACT are not stupid—they see through a government that tries to tell them that they should just be grateful for what they are getting from their government. They see through the spin from Labor which says, “No, you are actually doing really well.” Talk to the families in the suburbs about whether or not they are doing better than they were five years ago or 10 years ago. And if you look at their costs, and the statistics bear this out, when it comes to the things they need they are paying much more, and they have gone up much higher than their ability to pay.
In closing, I commend Mr Smyth again. This is something that the Canberra Liberals are genuinely committed to, not just in election years, not just when the polls say that cost of living is something you should be talking about. But we will keep pushing. We have made some steps here. I think it is disappointing that the Labor Party and the Greens are doing their very best to limit the effectiveness of it.
We believe that it will have some merit, not nearly as much merit as it would have if there had been some good faith in terms of this issue, if there had been a genuine desire to look after families, a genuine desire to say to the community: “We cannot fix everything when it comes to your cost of living but we will do whatever we can. We will manage the government. We will put forward laws and regulations and taxes, charges and policies which always are seeking to give you that little bit more, to give you a little of your own money back, to take a little of the pressure off your household budget.” That is what a good government would do. That is what a government that was connected to its community would do. We see no sign of it from this government and, in fact, this amendment is a reflection that they will do the absolute minimum when it comes to cost of living, even to the extent of the absolute minimum when it comes to making a statement in the budget. But I again commend Mr Smyth for his efforts in getting this important legislation through.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.06): It is interesting that we are now having a debate about direct or indirect taxes or, as Ms Hunter said, direct and incidental taxes. One of the taxes that Mr Barr seeks not to include in this list is the utilities tax. Yet if you go to your Telstra bill or some of the other utilities bills, what is listed there? The utilities tax. They hand it directly on to the household.
As a treasurer and as a minister in a government that has allowed the cost of living to come under such pressure in the ACT, I would want to seek to limit the taxation that is covered by this amendment. I would want to seek that because I would not want to be part of a government which has got such a bad reputation and record as the Gallagher government because of the pressure they have put on costs of living. I would seek to minimise it as much as I could.
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