Page 2214 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
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for some unusual reason they want to be in control of their destiny.
How does one control one's destiny when governments introduce a never-ending array of taxes, a never-ending length of red tape that businesses have to cut to get anything done? Indeed, I think it was Mr Collaery who mentioned this legislation as a method of handling tax avoidance. Well, the truth of the matter is that, if businesses did not avoid tax, they would not exist. Once upon a time, tax evasion was a heinous thing, and for anybody to be caught evading tax was not okay. At that time all accountants knew it was perfectly acceptable to let their business clients know how to avoid tax, which was a legal thing to do.
However, we are now told by those in Government that tax avoidance is also a terrible thing. It has joined tax evasion. The suggestion is that, if you try in any way not to pay the maximum amount of tax, then there is something wrong with that. Well, I disagree entirely with that viewpoint. I condemn the suggestion by governments that tax avoidance is not okay. All accountants, all businessmen, particularly those that employ other people, have a total right, responsibility and obligation to avoid every single penny of tax that they can.
That does not suggest that they break the law, but tax avoidance does not include breaking the law. We in this Assembly and others in Australia should not suggest that it does. We should suggest that the businessman should so arrange his affairs that he can survive, because without the small businessman and the small businesswoman we will not survive in the ACT. It may happen in other States, but it will not happen here.
When the ACT Alliance came to office, many people in the business community in Canberra thought, with a sigh of relief, "Now we will have people who will support small business". Was that my belief? Indeed, it was not. And why was it not? I remember having a conversation with a number of representatives of the small and not so small business community in Canberra prior to 5 December last year, prior to the no-confidence motion in Ms Follett. They had asked me, very simply, to vote for the Liberal Party on the no-confidence motion. They said that I should vote because of the principles that are espoused by the Liberal Party. I explained some of the things that have been done in this Assembly - forcing fluoride through and a number of others - and I said, "Show me that the Liberal Party is deserving of support on the principle of individual rights and the other statements which their policies so beautifully illustrate but which unfortunately all too often are not done". Naturally enough, we will hear more about that in the no-confidence motion tomorrow.
There is no doubt whatsoever that, if people in Canberra feel that they are currently being hard done by and if they
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