Bill introduced to abolish emergency services levy

Mulcahy has hit gold with this one. Next he should look at that disgraceful tax on water pipes that appears on my water bill every quarter.

tom-tom is half right in that Stanhope has done nothing to broaden our tax base and is reliant on slugging existing tax payers.

The other half is that Stanhope has not been accountable with his expenditure. His spending increases have been well above inflation and GDP growth and we have recieved nothing in return. In fact, its the opposite – closing of schools and Govt shopfronts so we can spend it planting tropical tress in a temperate climate.

These taxes would have been avoidable if he was actually able to manage our local government budget in a responsible fashion.

Bring back Quinlan who at least controlled some of the excesses.

“warchest” is right

The fire and emergency services levy should go. Rates have been spiralling up out of control and it turns out Stanhope didn’t need to bring it in, since the government ended up being in surplus (they really don’t know how to manage a budget, do they?). Worst of all, about this tax, is it doesn’t even go to fire services but straight into consolidated revenue. its just a tax

Mulcahy should introduce a bill to abolish Stanhopeless.

Goverment remove tax (except when it’s a swap)?

hahahahahahahhahahaahahahah!

Oh look Mulcahy is doing something. Best to make the most of the few months he has left in the Assembly.

Economic planning has to be focused on the long term, not just where we sit now.

Not that I’m necessarily against abolishing the levy, just a general comment.

The basic issue is that you have a single house government, with the governing party having an absolute majority. So for this sort of thing, the phrase “snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind.

Weren’t we in severe defecit about 3 months ago or was I hallucinating ?

I actually counter that its appropriate to account for every dollar that is levied from the public, and therefore should be completely broken down under 100% disclosure.

If Mulchay wants to play with cans of worms, he better be prepared for the consequences.

while i’d like to see lower rates it should be noted that the strong fiscal position of the act govt. is due mostly to one off income sources, land sales in civic etc so it would seem slightly irresponsible to cut off a useful income stream as a reaction to a budget surplus

Yay…