Page 2777 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
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Our tax reform program continues to promote fairness and equality, sustainability, and a stable and equitable revenue base for the territory into the future. I would further observe that those opposite have run very hard against this reform now for two consecutive elections. The people of Canberra have had their say twice now and have supported this reform twice.
In conclusion, Madam Acting Speaker, we took a positive and progressive plan to last year’s election. We are delivering it. That is what Canberrans care about, and that is what we are focused on: better schools, better hospitals, a better transport system, delivering urban improvements across the city. The government—all of my ministerial colleagues, all MLAs—are determined to work hard for our community.
For these reasons, we reject the premise of Ms Lawder’s motion and will be opposing it today.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (12.21): What this motion from Ms Lawder outlines is that the Liberal Party clearly disagrees with the agenda of the government. That, of course, is the wonder of democracy. That is very much their view, but I reject a lot of the premise of this motion, and the Greens will not be supporting it today.
This motion highlights a series of concerns and policy positions the Liberal Party has. The Greens hold a different view on many of these matters. We took very clear commitments to the last election, and we have a very clear agenda as to why we are in this place. It is an agenda of sustainability, of social justice, of participation by the community and transparency in government. These are values that we carry through the work we do in this place every day.
This motion loses sight of the fact that Canberra remains and is regularly rated as one of the most livable cities in the world. That is not to say that the city is perfect. I am really conscious, every day I come to work, of things that need to be improved and areas that we must focus on to either fix things up or make sure we take the next step in improving something in our city or getting ahead of the curve and making sure that we are at the forefront of being an excellent city. That is something that, as the Greens member of this government, I strive for every day, and it is something that, I think it would be fair to say, applies across the government.
There are a number of specific matters that Ms Lawder has raised in her motion. In fact, there is quite a grab bag of issues that have been flagged there. I do not intend to discuss each of them individually, but there are a couple I would like to focus on. I can flag that, given the motion from Mrs Jones later in the day, whilst I disagree with the point on the AMC, we will discuss that more extensively this afternoon. So I will not dwell on that point now, but I think that it is a mischaracterisation of the issue and I think it is both simplistic and inaccurate in the way that it frames the issue.
One issue that is contained in this motion is the issue of the cost of living. That is one that I will touch on. One area of particular interest for me is energy. We are seeing some pressures there, and we have seen recently in the ACT a significant rise in
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