Page 3525 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 September 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
raised on both sides of the house. The first matter the Leader of the Opposition mentioned was that ACT clubs will be paying 25 per cent more than New South Wales, having regard to total amounts paid. This was part of a very careful assessment in budget cabinet. My advice is that the 1 December rates struck for New South Wales would mean, for example, that the Southern Cross Club, which under our new rate would pay $2.02m in revenue off machines, in New South Wales would pay $2.06m. That is not 25 per cent.
Ms Follett: What about the licence fees?
MR COLLAERY: I will come to that. For the Tradesmen's Club, the amount payable in the ACT under the new rate would be $1.58m. In New South Wales it would be less, $1.55m, given their graduated scale. I can advise the house that my officers have assured me that the licensing fee in New South Wales, such as they have, is included in that figure, as is ours; so there is no one-off issue that can make that a different computation. Of course, we have totally different systems of computation, but the all up payments on machines are the figures I have given.
Mr Duby: The total tax dollar, all the Government charges. Those figures include the licence fees.
MR COLLAERY: Certainly, Mr Speaker, that suggestion is wrong. It is a suggestion that regrettably has been put out by the Licensed Clubs Association who appear to have a mouthpiece in this Assembly this morning. I am looking now at a document that lists the gross takings last financial year of the 67 licensed clubs in the ACT, or those clubs with machines.
A computer run on last year's takings shows that 35 of the clubs will be paying less money. Those lesser payments vary. For example, for the Australian Croatian Club, the current payment of $10,803 will go down to $6,332. It is a difference of $4,471. For those Scotsmen in the chamber, I note that the Burns Club is right on the median line, naturally, as one would expect. The Burns Club will pay $880 less.
We go past the Woden Town Club and move to the larger 32 clubs, the clubs that one would regard as very large, essentially about the last six or seven clubs - Royals, the Hellenic Club, West Belconnen Rugby League, Tuggeranong Valley, Ainslie Football, Canberra Labor Club, Canberra Tradesmen's and the Canberra Southern Cross Club. I am happy to make these figures available to the Leader of the Opposition, but I would ask the members not to ask me to table the figures because they may well disclose some matters that the clubs would prefer not to be out. I am happy to make these available to members.
To give the house an example of another club below the line, the Woden Valley Rugby League Club will pay $21,790 instead of $23,791. The Southern Cross Club will pay an
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .