Page 1142 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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somewhat easier to vary regulations. Certainly, the regulations are disallowable and they are public; we are not criticising any sort of undercover imposition of taxes or taxes that will not be seen by the public. But, on such an important issue, we ought not to rely just on regulations. It ought to be in the legislation.
It is not difficult in this parliament, particularly, to vary an Act of the Assembly. No government will have to worry about the possibility of locking itself in because of a hostile upper house preventing changes to the tax regime. That clearly is not the case. We have seen in the past that Bills can be put through quickly, if they need to be put through quickly; but it would be unlikely, Mr Speaker, that any government - this ramshackle Alliance while it lasts or Labor when in power for a long period of time - would want to change this tax regime quickly or in any sort of knee-jerk reaction.
It would be pretty obvious to all members of the Assembly that the question of varying a betterment tax regime for Canberra would be a fairly central issue of public policy. It would be high on the list of priorities, and any change to a regime would occur only after a fair degree of debate and policy making within the opposing parties and discussion within the community. So, I can see no real reason why public administration is advantaged by imposing this very important tax regime by way of regulation. I think a point of principle would be served by having this in the Act by way of schedule when we come to debate the final planning package. A point of principle would be served, and also a degree of additional confidence would be given both to the community - the wider community, the citizens and residents of this city - and to the particular sectional interests that are particularly concerned with areas of betterment. There I have in mind both residents who may take a particular interest in development in certain areas and developers themselves.
I think everyone would have more confidence if the tax regime were locked in by way of legislation, rather than being imposed and varied simply by ministerial fiat. We know that at the end of the day this Assembly has control over the tax regime because the Minister sets the rate. Of course, we accept the Chief Minister's assurances that it will be the rate that was previously announced. We know that that is, itself, disallowable by this Assembly; but I would urge the Government to look at introducing this into the Act. It does provide an additional level of security and certainty, and as we have repeatedly said - indeed, I am sure it is agreed on the other side of the chamber - that degree of certainty is important in planning legislation. So, that is a key difficulty with the Act as it presently stands. It does not specify this central issue of public policy in the Territory, which is the degree of betterment tax to be charged, and it would be greatly improved if that were to be included in the regulations.
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