A payroll tax waiver system for new business is cautiously welcomed, but more must be done to support new business. The Community Alliance believes there is merit in the idea of reducing payroll tax in the first five years as long as it is administered in an open, accountable and equitable manner, and that’s the key issue. If we held balance of power, the Community Alliance would support a selection process of businesses for support that is fair and above board. Having an apolitical panel of accountants selecting businesses on the merits of their proposal is a sound idea. Our concern is that the Chief Minister’s proposal, for Cabinet to make the final decision, exposes the process to potential political abuse and favoritism and must be rejected. I am committed to working cooperatively with community, business and government agencies to create an environment that fosters small business and cuts through some of the red-tape and selective and anti-competitive practices that have increased in recent years. We have always said we will support good policy, and the part of this proposal that helps start-up businesses based on merit, is a good example of the sort of policy we would like to see more of. More broadly we are working progressively to bring affordable cuts in rates, charges and levies for government services and to ensure our tax burden is distributed fairly among ACT residents and businesses.
Consultation – its not rocket surgury
Government have zero credibility on this issue, but I’m willing to cut them some slack. Instead of meeting with Bureacrats and Businessmen, I’ve got a list of community meetings that I’m personally inviting the Chief Minister and the Planning Minister to attend. There’s plenty of time for them to find room in their diary, as the first meeting is Wednesday next week. This is a lot more notice than the government has been giving the community. I’ll be attending them, and if the ministers would like a lesson in how to listen I’m happy to give it to them, because I’ve had a lot of practice. Give the consultants a holiday, and come and listen to the community. This “Citizen Centred Governance” report is 30 pages of unreadable bureaucratic drivel. Somehow, the Chief Minister has managed to make this issue much more complicated than it really is. It doesn’t take 30 pages to explain how to listen to the community. Canberra is full of intelligent, well educated people who are very good at stating their case. All the chief Minister has to do is turn up, put himself at the front of the room and listen. I’ll even demonstrate to him how it’s done, as I’ve got pretty good at it over the last few months. I’ve listened to all the community members who can’t get their voices heard by the government. One final note: sending ministers to meetings on State of Origin night, like the last Woden Community Council Meeting that the planning minister went to, doesn’t count – there was no-one there to ask questions. Ibelieve that Government Decision making BEGINS with Consultation, and not the other way round. In this government, ministers make bad policy decisions, then ‘sell’ the policy to the shocked community and call it consultation.
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One road for the price of two
The duplication of the Gungahlin drive extension is necessary and well overdue. Sadly, however, ACT taxpayers will yet again be paying far too much for the project because it was not planned properly the first time round. The most economical way to construct the GDE would have been to build a 4 lane road to start with. It really ought to have been part of the plan for Gungahlin from the very beginning, or alternatively, Gungahlin residents should have been given the option of a good quality public transport system. As is stands now, Gungahlin residents have very poor options when it comes to transport, and will do until the GDE is completed. In addition, the ACT Government will have succeeded in building one road, but paying for two, causing great expense at a time when our basic facilities like schools and hospitals are starved of funding. I strongly in properly thought out, long-term planning, and we sincerely hope that any future planning projects be executed in such a way. Unfortunately, it looks like the government has not learned its lessons yet and will be committing the same mistakes that led to the GDE in the new Molonglo development . There is a major lack of arterial roads planned for the development, and a complete lack of public transport infrastructure like light rail or bus lanes. I am sincerely asking the ACT government to stop all proposed development in north Weston and Molonglo and redesign the master plan to allow for proper transport planning. Let’s start planning Canberra properly, so it can become the city that all Canberrans want it to be.
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Unit Titles – A real mess
Canberrians are generally unaware that there are still serious regulations that need to be put in place, which is why the legislation is yet to commence. And why there is time to fix it up. I have sat down with some owners and managers and property managers generally the kind of licensing of managers that would be widely acceptable. Basically the Labor government have it in mind to swindle unit owners by taking the interest earned on their body corporate administrative funds to finance a new Bureaucratic appendage the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Yes this is another tax by making the ACT the highest taxing government in Australia. Worst of all all this will do is push up costs for unit owners and thus increase rents for tenants.Another issue is the licensing and funding hasn’t been worked out with owners and managers yet. I am opposed to this legislation and it needs to be redrafted as it was rushed and therefore aspects are still unresolved. Any owners seeking approval to do things to their properties, such as installing new alliances, or building improvements, will get caught up in annoying proxy processes that will create more barriers for them.
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Green Bins – its not hard
When I was younger and living in Quesnbeyan, there was a councilor Tom Baker was a real inspiration he was the one that got the Green Bin up and running in Queanbeyan. I first got to know Tom when I was working at the YMCA recycling center in Queanbeyan. Basically every household in Queanbeyan was provided with a Green Bin that accepted most garden and kitchen waste. A waste processing system was set up to accept the organic waste for processing into compost.
I have been lobbied the ACT government to do this for a long time. It is silly how much organic waste goes into land fill every day. There is a real lack of genuine, practical measures that Canberrans can use to help address climate change. This is why the See-Change groups are so critical in getting everyone to reduce their environmental foot print.
The majority of our compostable house hold waste continues to be heaped in with the rest of our landfill waste. We really need to achieve a genuine reduction in waste going to landfill.
My ideal programs’ purpose is to reduce the amount of waste shipped to landfills by turning organic waste into compost. The program would collect kitchen and related organic waste (pet waste, sawdust, and garden waste) using the a waist-high green curbside bin. The pickup of the waste would be on a frequent basis, fortnightly at this stage, along with other garbage and recycling collecting. We would then collect to a single point an composts it in an industrial composting facility. While it is true that backyard composting can also serve this purpose, the Green Bin programs are more convenient and more inclusive of source materials.
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Gambling Struggling in Current Economic Climate
Today there is an article on the ACT ABC news website… “Canberra clubs struggling in current economic climate” it goes on to say that “The troubled economic climate is affecting Canberra’s clubs with some saying they are on the verge of closing down. Clubs ACT’s chief executive Bob Samarcq says “rising costs and tougher smoking laws have contributed to an annual revenue drop of about $16 million.” The Question is that what effect is the Clubs and their pokie machines having on the Canberra public.
Lifeline tells us that you have a much higher chance of being hit by lightening in Australia (1 in 1,603,250) than winning Powerball (1 in 54,979,15). Also there is absolutely no skill involved in poker machine gambling. Nothing you do to the machine will influence the result of your game. The outcome of any one game is randomly generated and is not influenced by previous plays. A poker machine that has not paid out in a while is no more likely to pay out than one that just hit the jackpot. Australian’s spent almost $15.5 billion in 2004 on gambling. We spent around $6.5 billion on Gas and Electricity in the same year. 80% of problem gamblers who seek help state it is because of a problem with poker machines alone.One in eight regular gamblers is a problem gambler and they contribute 30% of the total gambling revenue. Around 6000 Canberra residents are thought to have a significant gambling problem. For each problem gambler, approximately 7 others are also affected. The suffering of addicts’ families in all social classes stays hidden: those children are often the very poorest, whatever their apparent household income. The more gambling there is, the more addicts are created. Why would a Labor government committed to abolishing child poverty encourage yet more?
There has been a great expansion of gambling, mainly through “pokies” now means more than 10% of government revenues come from gambling. The Terratory has become addicted to the nation’s gambling habits. No future government could decide gambling was damaging its people and seek to reduce it. How could they afford to lose those revenues? Better by far to try to hold down gambling as best a government can – and it can. In the US both houses have now passed a bill effectively stopping online gambling by banning banks from paying credit-card debts to any online gaming sites. Why can’t we? Instead, we are allowing television to advertise gambling for the first time – but only “socially responsibly”. How unusual is that Labor has had nothing whatever to say about any of it. Not a word! It may not be easy to know what to do about squalid and unmerited ill-gotten gains, but the first step is to talk about it and join the widespread disgust at this growing social problem.
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Barrgain from Andrew Barr
Seriously If you’re a property developer, the Andrew Barr has to be your best friend. He will allow you to buy ACT Government land under a restrictive agreement, ensuring you get it for a ‘Barrgain’ price. Then when it comes time to develop it, those restrictions will have magically disappeared. This is exactly what has happened on the Section 63 site in Civic. Although it sold for a record price late last year, the actual value of the land is now unknown and it could have been worth much more. The ensuing legal battle, if realised, is also likely to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mistakes like this will result in bad planning outcomes for Canberra, are unfair for competing developers and have meant that Canberra has missed out on money it would have received if the final use of the blocks was widely known. I think the people of Canberra would like for the planning minister to take some responsibility here and either fix the problem himself, or resign. He said he finds the mistake ‘extremely embarrassing’, and that sacking someone would be an over-reaction. I think there is one person who should definitely be sacked. The Minister. What a pity he doesn’t also feel enough shame to do the right thing and sack himself. If nothing else, it suggests that ACTPLA is under too much pressure to do its job as well as it would like to and as well as the community expects. With the Minister at the top of the ACTPLA leadership hierarchy, the question has to be asked: just how much pressure is the minister putting onto ACTPLA? The money lost from bad decisions like this could be much better spent on providing basic services and facilities for the people of Canberra. I’m committed to improving governance and accountability to try to stop expensive and wasteful mistakes like this and free up money for schools, health, and other basic services.
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NCA Insurance for Canberra
I really do support a stronger role for the Authority in the National Capital. Allowing the NCA to step in to stop the ACTPLA and LDA from making another massive stuff up for planning in the ACT would be a good thing. It will be the only way to avert a new planning disaster at the proposed Molonglo/North Weston Development.The ACT Government have shown that they are incompetent and unaccountable, so this is one of the few ways available for the ACT to have some quality control over future planning decisions.” Although the NCA has only disputed the Molonglo development in one section called Central Molonglo on environmental grounds, I believe that there should be more input from the NCA. The NCA can provide a good check and balance to the mischievous LDA, which appears to have only short term self interest at heart. Canberra is the National Capital and it is important that all planning be overseen to get the best results for Canberra. This will ensure that we preserve the unique qualities which all Canberrans value. The ACT Government has told us that there will not be any schools in Molonglo for another 5 years, and no shopping centre for 10 years. Not only will this be a massive burden for the people living in the new area and residents of Weston Creek and Belconnen, the rushed nature of the development is a complete betrayal of Gungahlin residents who are still without basic amenities and services. My approach is to work with the NCA and other stakeholder groups to get the best outcomes, not just the most profitable. This is what the people of the ACT deserve.
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Carbon Trading Won’t work
Carbon Trading is one of these things that economists love because it looks so clean and simple on the pages of a textbook. But in the real world it’s very hard to make it work like it should. If it’s not set up right, if it’s not policed right, then it can be worse than useless. The big companies get to pollute more AND charge us more, and the pollies get to tell us they’re fixing the greenhouse problem.
Voters have got no way of knowing because we have to rely on the government to actually tell us how much CO2 has been reduced. The only “proof” we have that greenhouse emissions have been reduced is that everything gets more expensive! Carbon dioxide has no taste, no smell, you can’t see it and it’s mostly emitted a long way from where people live.
The problem with carbon trading is that it puts all the power and knowledge about how to reduce emissions into the hands of bureaucrats and big companies. They are asking us to trust them to reduce greenhouse gases, without giving us any proof back that they are actually doing it except increased prices. We know they can increase prices already for no reason, we don’t need another demonstration!
A scheme should give everyone direct ownership for reducing their emissions, by making it easy for them to make lifestyle decisions to produce less emissions. We keep getting told that this is a global problem for the whole of humanity, if that’s the case we need a scheme where we can all help, and not get screwed by businessmen. Our scheme would actually put responsibility for climate change into everyone’s hands, instead of just talking about it. Our scheme is as follows:
1. Start switching all our power generation over to renewable, and develop the technology enough so it can, but the technology to meet base load does already exist, like solar storage, hot rocks, hydro.
2. Switch our interstate freight transport infrastructure over to be based on rail
3. Switch our intracity transport over to electric cars and compressed air cars as well as electric light rail. Electric cars have a short range but can be recharged at home from power generated by renewables.
4. Help people to change habits in home, and use new technologies to reduce emissions in the home.
5. Work with businesses so that the development of ALL new technologies and production methods are considered for their greenhouse impact. This would help to avoid problems like we saw yesterday with this new gas, Nitrogen Triflouride, being used by makers of plasma screens, which is the worst greenhouse gas yet known, with 17 thousand times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide.
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Pass the Salt
So the Commonwealth has given us $85m for improvements to water treatment and the Stanhope government has announcement that the money would be used to remove 40 tonnes of salt per day from the Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control Centre.
I’ve been really concerned by comments in the media telling us that we need a desalination plant which is essentially the same as a water recycling plant. i really hope that we are not getting a water recycling plant by subterfuge. It’s not as easy as it sounds to remove eight semi-trailer loads of salt from our water every day and deal with it in an environmentally friendly way. A good proportion of the salt is naturally occurring and the rest comes in to the system through the waste water system (detergents and washing powder). We need a holistic approach to the problem. We need to attack the amount of salt going in to the system trough education and promotion of low salt detergents.
There are so many questions that we need to ask about this water deal such as. What would be the costs of running a desalination plant? How much salt we need to remove? What steps it has taken to prevent the salt entering our waste water? Is this just an excuse to build a water purification plant? How will they dispose of the salt abstracted?
I understand the need for a range of extra water supply options for the ACT to secure our water supply, such as the proposed pipeline from the (upper) Murrumbidgee River at Angle Crossing to the Googong Dam and an enlarged Lower Cotter Dam on the grounds of increasing water security at a reasonable cost. Other options will be thoroughly investigated and reviewed.
I will work to halt the proposed water purification plant at the Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control Centre and the proposed desalination plant until there has been a satisfactory demonstration of the need, economic viability and safety for people and the environment.
