Page 1781 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2016
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much larger than any of the economic measures of growth, and people are really wondering what this government is doing. So it is about ceasing the inappropriately increasing cost burden on the community.
We know what the other taxes and fees and charges are doing. They are going up enormously. The general tax take goes up six per cent in total. Duties come down four per cent and that is because—yes, congratulations—two taxes are finishing. Well done on that score. But we then look at the other areas where we know that total other taxes go up 19 per cent, and this Treasurer thinks that is fair. That is before you get to things like the fees and charges. And when we look at the fees and charges, drivers licences are going to go up four per cent. For parking fees, the take is 22 per cent. This is a government with its hand in your pocket at every opportunity.
Then we look a bit further and we look at the other revenue. Traffic infringement notices are meant to go up 24 per cent. He gets you coming; he gets you going. Parking fines: we put the cost of parking up and we have more paid parking—I note there is a motion from Mr Wall this afternoon looking at what is being done in Phillip—and then we put the parking fines up as well and expect to collect more.
This is a government without a clear vision for where to go. This is a government that has failed to budget properly and to reduce the costs on the community. This is a government that is now looking at passing the debt burden onto future generations. And we see that this year’s outcome in the general government sector, chart 8.1.1, is $1.8 billion in debt. It is $2 billion in the coming year, then $2.1 billion, $2.9 billion in 2018-19 and then it eases to $2.5 billion—again a huge growth in the debt and all at a time when, as is neatly explained on page 46 of budget paper 3:
The increase in net debt as a percentage of GSP in 2016-17 is influenced by a decrease in investments to meet forecast cash flow requirements.
That sounds to me like you are taking capital and you are spending it on recurrent because you have outgrown your revenue. You have got enormous growth in revenue, as we have seen, since this Treasurer came to office.
But now what we are doing is having a decrease in investments. So we are taking the capital that we have managed to accumulate and we are going to put it back into cash flow. That is bad budgeting, that is dreadful budgeting, because that is the slippery slope that all treasurers should avoid. But this Treasurer, this Chief Minister, in his endeavour to dupe the people of the ACT that this is a budget for them, has taken his foot off the pedal a little. “Trust me, the rate increases are easing.” Yes but they are still double any of the economic measures in most cases. Then you just revert to kind. The expression a leopard does not change it spots springs to mind, and this tired moggy certainly has not changed his spots.
The problem is the people of the ACT pay. They pay and they pay and they pay and they seem to get less and less and less. Unless, of course, you live on Northbourne Avenue where, for an expenditure of $1.65 billion over 20 years, three per cent of the population will get a tram! I do not think anybody thinks that is a good deal. Certainly the people of Tuggeranong do not when they talk to me. And they are looking at their rates bills and they are seeing them triple under this government. (Time expired.)
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