Page 1067 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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Sport Policies
MS ELLIS: My question is addressed to the Deputy Chief Minister in his capacity as Minister for Sport. Is the Minister aware of comments on sports administration made recently at a Canberra sports luncheon by Senator Michael Baume? What effect would the policies announced at the luncheon have on the administration of the ACT sport portfolio?
MR BERRY: Thank you, Ms Ellis, for the question. Mr Deputy Speaker, this is an important issue for the ACT. It will, of course, make the Liberals' sport spokesperson ashamed to be a member of the Liberal Party. What they plan with the "frightpack" will do great damage to sport in Australia. Senator Baume has for some time used opportunities such as the sports luncheon at Canberra to gloss over the concerns that sporting groups have expressed with regard to the Liberals' goods and services tax. If the Liberals were to win the next election, Mr Deputy Speaker, one could reasonably predict that ACT sporting bodies could need additional grants of the order of 25 per cent to counter the effects of the "frightpack" and the goods and services tax. There is no question about that.
The Hewson tax manifesto, at supplement 5 - and I see that Mr De Domenico denies none of this - clearly spells out how the tax would affect local sporting clubs. I quote:
The club bills its 300 members at an annual subscription of $100 each, plus 15% G.S.T. making the final subscription $115 per member.
So there is one increased cost. And the 15 per cent tax would be attached to every action by the club.
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: We have a Minister who is interpreting a Liberal Party policy of which he clearly knows nothing. I submit that he is expressing an opinion, and he is out of order. He does not know what the Liberal Party intends to do about the Fightback package.
MR BERRY: Neither do the Liberals, it appears.
Mr Kaine: You are merely speculating, Minister, and that is not on.
MR BERRY: There is a little bit of a blister under the old saddle there.
Mr Kaine: You are expressing an opinion, and I do not value your opinion on this or anything else.
MR BERRY: No, you will not, because it is close to the truth. That is your problem.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Berry, I draw your attention to standing order 118, which states that answers to questions without notice shall be concise and confined to the subject matter of the question. If you were straying into opinion, I suggest that you desist from that.
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