Page 1326 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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Public Accounts—Standing Committee
Report 6
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.05): I present the following report:
Public Accounts—Standing Committee—Report 6—Inquiry into Commercial Rates, dated 4 April 2019, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
I am very pleased to present, on time, public accounts committee report No 6 in relation to the commercial rates inquiry. Before I go to my prepared comments, I want to place on the record my appreciation for the members of the public accounts committee—the Deputy Chair, Ms Cheyne; Ms Cody and Ms Lawder—for the very collegial way in which this important inquiry was conducted.
Considering the very tight time frames, I also want to thank the committee office staff: the committee secretary, Dr Brian Lloyd; and the research assistant, Mr Danton Leary, who was brought on to assist the committee in bringing this rather substantial report to conclusion in a fairly tight time frame. I wish to thank those members of the public who contributed so much and so thoughtfully to this committee report. We had 57 submissions and we took evidence from about 30 people in relation to the committee inquiry.
I also want to place on the record—this is one of the things that happens with things which are done in a fairly tight time frame—that recommendation 13 as printed is incorrect. It should read:
Some members of the Committee recommend …
I will ensure that there is a corrigendum to fix that up. It is obviously an oversight in the editing. I think it was the last thing that we did in the committee process. I do apologise to members and I will ensure that there is a corrigendum.
This inquiry revealed a lot more than I thought it would. There are real problems with commercial rates in the ACT, reflected in high levels of concern about fairness, equity and transparency. It seems, from the evidence that we received from contributors, that the system is not working and it creates strange and unfair outcomes, and commercial ratepayers are experiencing real hardship.
The system is not responsive. Contributors made it clear that internal processes are inadequate when it comes to raising an objection with the ACT revenue office, and there are very high costs when the ratepayer goes to ACAT. In fact, most are advised by their lawyers not to go to ACAT because the costs can be greater than the benefits. In real terms, remedies are very limited for ratepayers.
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