Page 1669 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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MR JENSEN (4.33): Mr Speaker, I rise in this debate to speak briefly in support of my colleague Mr Collaery. Also, I understand that my colleague Mr Moore will either be speaking today or in the detail stage about the cuts in education. The Rally supports the comments made by Mr Humphries in relation to the concern about the Government's cuts in education. I will comment on that a little later in my speech. Today, however, I want to talk about an area that concerns me and one or two of the specific items of the budget that fall within my area of interest and responsibility.
First, Mr Speaker, let me refer to the matter of betterment tax. If we look at page 15 of budget paper No. 4 we will see that the estimated revenue from betterment tax in this financial year is $3m, and if we look across in the column next door we will note that the betterment tax from the last financial year was also $3m. There has been no consideration, I would suggest, even for the possibility of inflation in this figure, and certainly in no way in the world does it take into account Labor Party policy to which my colleague Mr Humphries has already referred.
Let me refer to and refresh the minds of the members of the Government on their policy in this particular matter:
A major revenue initiative is to increase the maximum rate of betterment tax from 50 to up to 100 per cent and to improve the enforcement of the tax.
The next sentence is the crunch line:
This will provide an extra $4m to the ACT community by ensuring that capital gains from lease purpose changes granted by the ACT Government are available to the community.
In case there is any worry, Mr Speaker, members opposite will see quite clearly that I am reading from an actual copy of their policy document, so no-one can say that I am making it up.
Mrs Grassby: Isn't it a wonderful policy?
MR JENSEN: Mrs Grassby says that it is a wonderful policy. Well, the Government certainly made no attempt to introduce it into this particular budget. So one has to wonder why the Government has decided to wimp on this issue. Now I have it on reasonable authority that the Government's attitude to the matter is that it is all too complicated. It is all too difficult, it would seem, to work out the necessary arrangements.
But we have here a budget that is prepared to cut some $4m from the education system. I wonder whether those teachers who will not be working next year in the system that they
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