Page 107 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 April 1992
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QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Business Taxes
MR KAINE: I address a question to the Chief Minister and Treasurer. I refer to the Chief Minister's answer yesterday to my question in connection with borrowing to cover the potential $35m shortfall in next year's budget - and that is a minimum deficit, I presume - and I refer her also to her continued statements and platitudes about encouraging the private sector. Given those two factors, I again ask: Will the Chief Minister rule out introducing new taxes, or increasing existing taxes, on business to fund her potential budget shortfall, and will she give an undertaking that she will not place any new imposts on business in the Territory in the coming financial year?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, Mr Kaine's purpose in pursuing this tactic, if you could call it a tactic, I am afraid defies all logic. It defies all logic because, quite frankly, I think his own record on this matter must be a source of enormous embarrassment, not just to him but indeed to his party. It is a fact that in the only budget which Mr Kaine has delivered he borrowed $43.4m and had revenue initiatives of $46m. So, Mr Kaine's only budget was a high borrowing, high taxing budget. For those of us who recall some of his revenue initiatives, as Mr Kaine clearly does not, they were, of course, the very things which he, now that he is in opposition, would consider to be not in the interests of the business community. They included an increase in payroll tax from 6 to 7 per cent - - -
Mr Kaine: I take a point of order, Madam Speaker. I asked the Chief Minister and Treasurer what her intentions are for the next fiscal year. We do not need a history lesson, because it is totally irrelevant to the question that I asked. I ask that you direct the Chief Minister and Treasurer to answer the question.
MS FOLLETT: I think some of these points are hitting home, Madam Speaker. It is a fact, of course, that Mr Kaine's record is not great. He borrowed and he taxed highly in his only budget. Mr Kaine has asked me again to pre-empt what I might do in the budget. As I said twice yesterday, I am not prepared to do that. I am simply not prepared to offer Mr Kaine any comfort on this matter. I will not pre-empt what will be in the budget. I have already outlined, through the forward estimates, what the task is in the budget. I have already said that we must wait on the Grants Commission outcome and on the Premiers Conference outcome, before we can define the parameters of that budget more closely. I am not prepared to go beyond that.
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Could I take it from the Chief Minister's answer that she does not intend to impose any additional taxes on the business community?
MS FOLLETT: I have stated, Madam Speaker, and I will state it for the umpteenth time, that I am not prepared to pre-empt what might be in the budget.
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