Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro lays out CLP policy platform in budget reply
In her budget reply speech, Lia Finocchiaro has laid out the Opposition’s plan for the Northern Territory. Here’s what the CLP is promising going into the August election.
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The Country Liberal Party has pledged to fund housing and cut taxes, but questions remain about what could hit the chopping block to pay for a ‘reprioritisation’ of the Territory’s record-debt budget.
Delivering her budget in reply to parliament on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro laid out her vision for the Territory if the CLP wins government in August.
She promised no asset sales and no austerity measures, which, in the context of forward estimates butting against the NT’s $15bn debt ceiling, seem to hinge entirely on ambitions for rapid economic and population growth.
While improving community safety remained central to these plans, Ms Finocchiaro’s speech offered the most comprehensive policy platform to date from a party often singularly focused on crime.
“Our plan of action to tackle crime and restore community safety will rebuild the Territory’s reputation as a great place to live, work and invest,” she said.
“We need our small businesses to grow and to prosper, but crime and cost of living are threatening to shut their doors for good.
“When the Territory has a strong economy everyone is better off. It delivers well paid jobs, job security, career growth, homegrown talent, exciting opportunities, and it gives Territorians the confidence they need to build a home, raise their family and settle here.
“A growing economy means bigger investments in police, in health, in education, it means less tax, and more choice.
“The CLP knows that to rebuild our economy, we have to urgently boost our population.”
Chief Minister Eva Lawler said the CLP had not provided a budget, but uncoated election promises.
“What Territorians heard yesterday from our government was what is in the budget, what has been costed and what is being spent,” she said.
“All you heard from the CLP was an election commitment – that election commitment has not been costed.”
Ms Lawler took aim at the CLP’s proposed cuts to payroll tax, which would increase the tax-free threshold by $1m to $2.5m.
“Treasury would never be happy with somebody who is trying to get rid of ($52m in) own-source revenue in the Northern Territory,” she said.
“Of those 3200 employees that you think will be better off, only 14 per cent of them are actually Territorians, the rest are large interstate national companies.”
Academic Rolf Gerritsen, a former senior government bureaucrat, said the plan could be improved if it applied only to apprentice wages.
“My reservation is if I ran a business and the revised threshold applied I’d be likely to invest the extra money in superannuation or a retirement fund or buy a house somewhere else, but either way the money goes out of the Territory,” he said.
“If you do it with apprentices there’s a higher chance they’ll stay in the Territory and add to the skilled workforce, which then makes it a good, low-cost idea.”
Country Liberal Party election promises
ECONOMY AND POPULATION
“The CLP will unashamedly pursue mining, gas, defence, tourism and agriculture … it is in these industries that our inherent wealth sits, it is in these industries that we will create the jobs of the future, and real jobs in remote communities,” Ms Finocchiaro said.
- HomeGrown Territory Grant: $20m has been committed to grant $50,000 to first home buyers building a new home after the completion of their slab. Existing property owners undertaking a new build to live in will receive $30,000, and first home buyers of existing homes will receive $10,000.
- Increase payroll tax threshold from $1.5m to $2.5m.
- Slash all approval time frames across government by 50 per cent.
- No asset sales
- No austerity measures
- No job cuts in the public service
- Reinstate an Asian Relations and Trade Minister
- Support the development of crop ready land through investment in roads, research and development.
- Simplify the hybrid mining tax
- Lobby the federal government to increase the zone tax offset, expand the designated area migration agreement, and change migration rules to allow NT businesses to hire more foreign skilled workers.
- Fast-track the conversion of vacant commercial CBD buildings into student accommodation
- Establish the Office of Territory Coordinator to oversee major projects
CRIME
- Lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10 (it is currently 12)
- Give police powers to fine, charge and arrest people for drinking in public
- Reinstate rules making it illegal to drink within 2km of a licensed premises
- Make ‘posting and boasting’ on social media an aggravated offence
- Introduce ram raid legislation
- Criminalise breach of bail
- Ensure there is presumption against bail for all serious violent offences
- Enforce minimum mandatory sentencing for assaults on workers
- Give police back the ability to use spit hoods
- Reinstate compulsory alcohol treatment
- Reform internal police disciplinary system
CORRECTIONS
- Two new purpose-built women’s prisons in Alice Springs and Darwin
- $10 million for two new adult prisoner work camps
- A New Work in the Community Home Detention program
- $5 million Sentenced to a Skill program
- Compulsory alcohol, drug and behavioural change rehabilitation for related offences for sentences more than three months
- Creation of a stand-alone corrections agency, which see Youth Justice moved out of Territory Families
- Boost Sentenced to a Job program
- Compulsory community service for youth offenders
- Two Youth Boot Camps located in Darwin and Alice Springs
- A commitment that all future prisons will be built at Holtze
COST OF LIVING
- Doubling the Home and Business Battery Scheme to $12,000
- Doubling the solar feed-in tariff at peak times
- No fees for Territory Parks, boat registration, boat licensing, or fishing licencing for locals
LIFESTYLE
- Expanded hunting reserves
- Increased croc management
- More opportunities for land-based fishing
- Improve accessibility at boat ramps
EDUCATION
“The CLP’s focus for education has three key elements: increasing school attendance, boosting literacy and numeracy by getting back to basics, and retaining and attracting our exceptional teachers,” Ms Finocchiaro said.
- Move teachers off short term contracts into permanent places
- Expand school-based policing
- Ensure qualified school counsellors are based in schools and properly resourced
- Reinstate truancy officers
- Hold parents accountable if their kids skip school, including the possibility of fines, prosecution and income management.
- Increasing access to special education for students with a disability.
HEALTH
“The CLP’s plan of action will decentralise health delivery by creating Top End Health and Central Australian Health to put real decision making back in the hands of the health professionals on the ground,” Ms Finocchiaro said.
“Lowering crime rates will alleviate hospital pressure ensuring we have beds for the sick and safer workplaces for our staff.
- Split health delivery into Top End and Central Australia services
- Increased and mandatory alcohol rehabilitation programs
- Improving and expanding aged care facilities through “increased business confidence and federal partnerships”.
OTHER
- Defund the Environmental Defenders Office
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