Page 1330 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019

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In addition, there is the impact on those who purchase commercial property as part of their superannuation. This threatens their retirement. This is felt very keenly. It was illustrated to us by those who said they will have to delay their retirement for years because they are not getting the income that they expected.

In summary, I urge you all to read not only the recommendations but also the commentary, the entirety of the evidence presented to the committee, so that you can understand for yourselves the difficulties facing commercial ratepayers. I look forward to the government response and I urge it to reconsider, to ensure that we do not lose businesses to other jurisdictions.

MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (10.21): I will speak briefly as well. I want to echo the comments of my colleagues on the committee and particularly give my thanks to the chair of the committee, who I think did a very good job in a very short time frame. I also convey my thanks to Dr Brian Lloyd and Danton Leary, who had to go through a few different drafts of this report. I think they did so with a very high level of quality, notwithstanding a small error, for which a corrigendum will be issued. My thanks to the chair for drawing attention to that and seeking to rectify that as soon as possible.

I would also agree that it is very much a collegial report. They were collegial deliberations, and I think in many ways this is a negotiated report. I think there were a number of areas where we were in agreement and we worked together in a very collaborative way on our commentary and also on what those recommendations should be.

I also want to give my thanks to the many witnesses that we heard from. They had to appear quite quickly after they submitted, due to the tight time frames of this committee. I thank them for the good faith, the openness and the transparency in which they all appeared, including government officials and the Chief Minister and Treasurer. I think the openness and the candour they displayed when they appeared has helped us to craft some meaningful recommendations.

I note that the committee became aware that a number of contributors had connections to one another. This certainly does not detract from any of the evidence that we heard, but for transparency the committee has drawn attention to this in the report so that the broader community is aware that we were aware. I echo Ms Lawder’s comments that we have been quite deliberate in our commentary. There was considerable care taken with the drafting of this report. It certainly was not a slapdash effort by any means. I think all committee members paid due attention to the crafting of this report. I know that the government will be looking at these recommendations carefully.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

ACT children and young people’s commitment 2015-2025

Ministerial statement

MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Disability, Minister for Children, Youth and Families,


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