Page 6167 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
collected back from him over the next six months. I cannot see what net benefit there is for a club that has to go through all that routine.
It seems to me a very strange and mechanistic process of effecting a change in the basis of collection of tax. I fail to see why it could not have been put into effect, say, from 1 January and have the new conditions apply from then. Anybody who has paid a licence fee would get an offset. They would not have to go through all this. So, Mr Speaker, it seems to me unnecessarily complex. It seems to me that there is no reason why a government, having collected a licence fee, ought to refund it, and then get it back in some other way. It seems rather odd to me.
More importantly, I am concerned about the small clubs that, with this 200 voting members provision, are simply not going to qualify as eligible clubs. The net effect of that is that their tax rate goes to 35 per cent. I suspect that that will put a lot of them out of the market because they are simply no longer viable. Many of them are having trouble now. When you increase their tax rate to 35 per cent I believe that it is going to push them over the edge.
We have seen already some fairly large clubs that have not been able to cope. I suspect that many of these smaller clubs, a great number of which are ethnic clubs, are not going to survive this experience, even if they do get their licence fee repaid to them, or part of it, and then have to pay it back in the next six months. I think there is a great deal in this Bill that, with further consideration, we would have sought to change. I think that if the Government had really thought it through they would have changed it before they put it to the Assembly.
MR COLLAERY (12.00): I am indebted to Mr Duby's erudite and informed commentary on this Bill. I thought it was a very interesting speech, and I listened to it very carefully. Mr Speaker, the main issues about this Bill have been traversed and I will not detain the house. Everyone is keen to get on with the action.
There are two antithetical moves within the club industry. They are that the big clubs get bigger, and the smaller clubs get marginalised; and they are getting marginalised for a whole variety of reasons. One is management style, on occasion. Another is the fact that we simply have too many clubs in town. Another thing is that their memberships are declining, for a variety of reasons. The demography in the areas in which they were set up is declining, and some of the ethnic clubs, in particular, are not getting that sustaining level of immigration into the Territory that promoted them in the first place. Some of the ethnic clubs have moved laterally, and they have assisted themselves to get additional membership. Others are struggling, and I note that the Bill essentially gives them six months to try to get up to the 200 members limit and sort themselves out.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .