Page 1023 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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Schedule 1, part 1.2, amendment 1.4 agreed to.
Schedule 1, part 1.2, amendment 1.5.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (5.44): I will be opposing this amendment. Responding to the Chief Minister’s comments just then regarding my offer to send this to a committee, when the Chief Minister said no, we knew there was no agreement, so we did not move that it go to a committee. If we had wanted simply to show up the government, we would have moved that it go to a committee and said, “Look, you guys rejected it.” We simply asked in a collaborative way, “Are you interested in sending this to a committee?” The Chief Minister said no, so we did not do it. Imagine if the Chief Minister had said, “Actually there are a few interesting aspects of this bill. We would be happy to do that.” That would have been a good outcome. But instead he said, no, so there was no agreement for that, so we did not do it. If you cannot have those sorts of conversations without the Chief Minister breaking confidence in doing that, what is the point? What is the point of having a conversation?
Mr Barr: Why is he chipping me about not doing it quickly? Because—
MR COE: Because you did not do it six months ago when you voted against the very same legislation. Six months ago Mr Parton moved legislation in this place that is identical to what is being moved today in an aspect, and you said you could drive a truck through it. Now you are bringing back the same legislation out of stubbornness, and we are going to get a result now that we could have had six months ago.
This shows the disdain that the Chief Minister has towards people in Canberra who cannot afford the housing that he has created. He has caused so much of the housing crisis we have in the ACT. What we are trying to do is at least have something that treats the symptom, at the very least. This could have been done six months ago but instead the Chief Minister said no out of stubbornness.
The opposition will be opposing the duty exemption for the university. As stated previously, we do not believe that there should be inconsistent standards applied to developments in the ACT. We are not simply talking about university developments; we are talking about for-profit ventures that happen on the university campus. Labor and the Greens want to roll out the red carpet for this. Why do we not therefore, under the same principle, have duty exemptions right across Canberra? That would be consistent.
If you think that getting rid of duty will stimulate investment and growth, let us do it right across Canberra rather than have a two-track system. Why do we do not that? But instead they are going to have a two-track system. Anybody who looked at the revenue for the ACT would know that they are collecting more from stamp duty today than back in 2012. If the government wants to use this as stimulus for the ACT, then why do we not have a level playing field across the territory? Obviously this is more about giving free kicks to pet projects.
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