Page 830 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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Mr Connolly talked about a 1.6 per cent return on a $1.2 billion investment. This notion of a $1.2 billion investment is great in accounting terms and has its place in accounting terms, but in terms of the amount of money that people are actually going to pay out of their pockets in taxation it has no relevance whatsoever. What we have is a $19m injection into the budget, and if we did not have that $19m injection people would be able to pay less for their electricity and water. Business would be able to pay less for electricity, and that would be a great advantage to business. Perhaps it would give Territorians an advantage as far as business possibilities go.
Mr Connolly: Our prices are still cheaper. We still have a comparative advantage.
MR MOORE: Mr Connolly, they could be cheaper still. So what does that mean about the budget? What it means is that you are going to have to find some other way to raise the money - a way to do it up front. I have already guaranteed, and I intend to continue to guarantee, your Supply and Appropriation Bills.
You said, "It is all right for Mr Moore in Mooreland". Mooreland is a wonderful place; you are invited to come along any time and I will be quite happy to discuss it. Your consultations could go even further, and you might learn something. What happens in Mooreland? We do have a realistic view, which is why we are prepared to support your Appropriation Bills. What would happen there is that we would increase taxation, and we would do it on land tax. Those of us who were here in the last Assembly have had innumerable letters from Mr Bill Mason, who writes from the theories of Henry George. Of course, the Henry George theories are largely untested in Australia, although we use them to a certain extent.
I advocate, without any shame at all, that we should move in that direction; we should favour an increase in land tax. That is why last year, when Labor in its budget introduced a land tax, I supported it right from the word go. It was an unpopular move just prior to an election, but I happened to believe that it was right. It is right because it is an equitable way to tax. A flat rate tax has a major disadvantage to the poor. It has a major advantage to those who are well off. A land tax operates the other way round. If you are really interested in social equity, you do not go for a flat rate tax. That has been Labor's argument against the GST and that should be their argument now against this form of flat rate tax. The problem is that it is socially inequitable. Instead of using this flat rate, GST-style tax, we should be looking at other forms of taxation.
Those people who say, "The Henry George ideas on land tax are up the pole; we should be doing all these other sorts of things" should look at every government in Australia. They should look at unemployment around Australia. What people have been doing up to now has not been working. If we continue doing a bit more of the same, it still will not work. It is time to start looking at a transition to some alternatives, and that transition, I believe, began last year with the Labor budget and the introduction of their first portion of land tax.
Mooreland, using Mr Connolly's term, is suggesting that there is a way of more equitably taxing, and it is not to be convinced by your public servants that you have to put sewerage, water and power costs up and extract more from ACTEW. What is it going to be this time? It was $8m a few years ago; then an extra $5m, making $13m; it was $19m last year.
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