Fed: Fire tax flagged for ACT

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Fed: Fire tax flagged for ACT

CANBERRA, Feb 10 AAP - The ACT government today flagged a fire tax to pay the $10 million-plusbill for fighting Canberra's bushfires.

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the tax would be discussed as part of the territory'sbudget and it was likely plans to build a jail in the national capital would have to beshelved to help foot the fire-fighting bill.

He said the cost of the fires that devastated Canberra in January, killing four peopleand destroying 530 homes, was still accumulating.

Treasurer Ted Quinlan's office confirmed about $1 million a day was spent on food,accommodation and overtime - totalling more than $10 million - and $70 million worth ofgovernment assets, such as pine forests, were lost.

"Governments are in the same position of householders or individuals," Mr Stanhopesaid on ABC Radio.

"When you suffer a sudden shortfall in cash, when you're met with an expenditure youdidn't expect, you've got two responses.

"You find more money or you stop spending it in ways that you planned to spend it."

He said one way to save money was to delay the building of a jail.

"We've managed to live for decades without a prison. I think we need one, we're workingtowards one, but I've used that as an illustration of the sort of thing we as a communitycould put off for a year or two in order to cover the unexpected cost of a fire," Mr Stanhopesaid.

"Just during the fighting of the fire we were spending up to a million dollars a dayof money that we hadn't budgeted to spend and that was over a two-week period.

"We've probably spent more than $10 million as a community just for fighting the fire.

Mr Quinlan's spokeswoman said any fire tax would be revealed in the May 6 Budget.

AAP sm/sb/pw/br

KEYWORD: BUSHFIRES ACT TAX