Once again there is a campaign to introduce paid parking in the Parliamentary triangle. And once again, the same tired arguments are peddled.
This time it started with some quotes from the Remuneration Tribunal interviews with departmental secretaries with the quotes:
The allocated cost of parking makes no sense. I pay for parking by parking under the building, though I could park on the street outside for nothing.
AND
I pay for parking in the Civic. In the Parliamentary circle they don’t pay for parking.
Well, no. I don’t know of any departmental secretary – or senior executive service officer for that matter – who has to pay for their own parking. The grateful taxpayer pays for their parking.
These comments are chutzpah in the extreme. These pampered public servants get reserved parking under cover funded by the taxpayer and then complain that their equivalents in the Parliamentary triangle don’t pay for their parking.
Ken Henry has to park his car outside – yes, it is “free”, but it sits in the burning sun while his colleagues in Civic enjoy under cover parking funded by the taxpayer.
Today we have the Canberra Times – that organ of economic orthodoxy – lobby for paid parking in the Parliamentary triangle because
[it] denies the [ACT] Government a potential income stream, and makes the development of a sustainable transport system more problematic. It is, at its core, inequitable.
Which I suppose means that the Commonwealth should transfer more money to the ACT government.
Catherine Carter – executive director of the Property Council ACT – stated
It’s entirely unfair that most people in Canberra pay for parking but a certain privileged few don’t
So people working at the shopping centres at Yarralumla, Garran, Hughes, Kambah, Wanniassa, Gowry, Fyshwick, Hume, Griffith, Mitchell, Deakin, Curtin, Queanbeyan, Jerrabomberra, Red Hill, Garran, Chifley, Chapman, Fisher – to name a few – are a “privileged few” by the standards of Ms Carter (and Chief Minister Stanhope).
And I’m sure that Carter and Stanhope also pay for their parking (NOT!)
If Carter et al want paid parking in the Parliamentary triangle, it should also be introduced at the Yarralumla shops – it is so unfair that workers there enjoy paid parking!
Let’s face it. Senior Executives don’t have to pay for their parking. MPs don’t have to pay for their parking. Only junior public servants have to pay.
The longest distance between any two points is an ACTION bus route. Canberra is spread out (by design) and car usage is effectively mandatory. There is no shortage of space in the Parliamentary triangle. Those who park there are tourists and other visiting National monuments such as the Gallery and Parliament house and those working – mainly public servants. So it is just a proposal to levy a new tax. The opportunity cost of the land parked upon is minimal since the Government (Federal) will never allow alternative uses such as housing.
There is nothing per se wrong with paid parking. It is a sensible way to allocate a scarce resource. But so great is the availability of land in the Parliamentary triangle that the fee would be negligible. And in any case, the public service employees would most likely have the parking paid for by the government. So it would simply be a transfer from the Commonwealth to the ACT. But since the land is the Commonwealth’s why should the ACT receive any revenue?
The population of the ACT is very low. It has extremely low density and so public transport will always be a sideshow. The mentality that we should levy parking fees in the Parliamentary triangle to encourage public transport is just silly leftist speak. Far better would be to shut down ACTION altogether and spend the money saved in improving public transport in Sydney. The gains would be considerably greater than throwing away money on the public transport system in Canberra.
Levying parking fees in the Parliamentary triangle (if public servants are not compensated) would only widen the gap in salary between non-senior executive officers and the general public servant. And perhaps that is what is in the mind of the Remuneration Tribunal when it stated that departmental secretaries should be paid as much as the RBA governor – around $850,000. Meanwhile the direction of the government is for common pay structures across the public service. This would just widen further the gap between secretaries and other public servants.
And as for the departmental secretary quoted above, if he or she cannot distinguish between the taxpayer funding his or her parking and private funding, that reflects a fundamental misjudgment not unlike that of Nicolas Fouquet, the French finance minister in the 17th century.
This is a bizarre argument. What you’re basically arguing is that if some public service staff get their publicly subsidized parking for free, everyone else should too. So either everyone should get everything some public servants do (Mao would be pleased), or the public service shouldn’t be able to work out their own pay structures/incentives (because let’s face it, having everything identical in an organization leads to the best outcome). Where I work, I don’t get my parking subsidized even though it’s partly funded by public money, but many of the high level staff do. Should I go and cry about it too?
conrad
10 Apr 10 at 6:49 am
No Conrad, I’m just saying that a lot of people in Canberra don’t pay for their parking and that (therefore) the argument that “a privileged few” get free parking is a nonsense. Also, free parking is not necessarily subsidised parking.
Samuel J
10 Apr 10 at 6:55 am
“Also, free parking is not necessarily subsidised parking.”
That’s only because there’s no such thing as free parking. If the government can get some money back from the actual users of the roads, then good. Also, as arguments, you need forget about (a) that people have to use cars because the city is planned poorly (ever been to Sydney? Retarded monkeys could have done a better job at planning and transport, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have to pay for parking); and (b) these socialist style arguments whereby you say that some people get free parking, so therefore others should. I accept the fact that the holder of the land (often the government) might not do a very sensible job in assigning it’s use, but that’s a different argument. Where I work, for example, useless adminstrivia people are put ahead of us on the rather few parkings spots that there are, but that doesn’t mean I should get the park instead.
conrad
10 Apr 10 at 10:47 am
IMO most of the land currently set aside for parking should be sold off for development. The ACT govt is as bad at running car parks as they are at everything else. The pricing and location of car parks is all wrong.
asf
10 Apr 10 at 5:33 pm
Yeah. I don’t understand why half the city of Canberra is single story car park. Right in the middle and everything. It is insane. They could release it for development, with the proviso that there were a couple of levels of underground parking, and everyone would be miles in front.
Tim Quilty
10 Apr 10 at 7:34 pm
It’s a straight-out cash grab by a pack of useless wastrel idiots who want more money to flush down the bog on useless crap or election bribes. The land inside the triangle is NOT controlled by the ACT ‘government’.
On land in Civic which is, $45 a week is the parking cost. If you have to drive to work and park in a pay slot, your 48 weeks a year are $2160 for Stanhope’s crew of worthless idiots. And you pay over the margin for most cars anyway in rego – the very reason I (quite legally) register mine in NSW!
AFAIK there’s about 10,000 cars parked inside the triangle. The ACT ‘government’ sees that simply as nearly half a million a week they can’t get their grubby paws on.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL of Canberra
10 Apr 10 at 9:33 pm
“It’s a straight-out cash grab by a pack of useless wastrel idiots who want more money to flush down the bog on useless crap or election bribes. The land inside the triangle is NOT controlled by the ACT ‘government’.”
You sound like the Canberra-drivers-free-rent-seeking-association. If you don’t like the government, and want some socialists that allow everyone to park everywhere at someone else’s expense (which is what it is), then you should vote the current government out. Either that or take Tim Quilty’s suggestion, which seems far more sensible, although you’ll still have to pay for parking.
conrad
11 Apr 10 at 10:29 am
Free parking at work is not really free. I costs money to provide car parks and therefore is part of the remuneration. The idea that there should be a universal rule is, of course, nuts.
IN defence of MarkL, he simply said that the useless ACT govt should not get paid parking fees for land they don’t control and that parking in the land they do control is relatively expensive and the revenue wasted. Hardly a clarion call for parkers of the world to unite.
pedro
11 Apr 10 at 9:50 pm