Page 1415 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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people from the youth sector who are concerned about the provision of those services. I have to say that there has been some misinformation about the issue that has been cast around, and I have taken early steps to ensure that people from the youth sector are properly consulted in the redevelopment process at the hospital. In the meantime, Madam Speaker, services for adolescents will continue to be provided, as they always have been, even under the Liberal Government, in the facilities at Woden Valley Hospital.
It is all right for people to shriek for more services with immediate effect - Mrs Carnell falls into this category - and, of course, that makes a good and tidy headline. But Mrs Carnell does not have to worry about the provision of these services. We have to do that. If you want experts to do things which are part of a social justice strategy, just come and see the Labor Party.
Land Tax
MR CORNWELL: My question is to the Chief Minister. I refer to her media statement last Friday, which said in part:
The Chief Minister today released details of several measures to assist landowners who had been made unintentionally liable for land tax following recent changes to impose tax on residential investment properties.
I ask: Chief Minister, will you introduce assessments of land tax on a pro rata basis, so that people are liable for tax only for the part of the year for which their property is actually rented? I specifically ask this question and give you as an example somebody who buys a property which is already rented. They cannot break the law and throw the tenants out on the street. There may be six months of that tenancy to run. They are obliged by the law to allow the tenants to stay there until that six months has expired. Under your proposals they are then deemed to be landlords and accordingly are charged rent, not for that six months but for the twelve months. Where is the equity and fairness in that?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I do not have it in mind to make the payment of land tax pro rata, as I am sure Mr Cornwell is only too well aware. I think that members have to understand that the levying of the land tax is based on the land ownership and use at a particular date, and that date, of course, is 1 July of each year. In Mr Cornwell's theoretical case where the property was sold tenanted after 1 July, I would expect that the land tax would already have been levied. I fail to see how another situation could arise. But, Madam Speaker, I could be wrong about any individual case, depending on the dates that applied and so on. I would have thought that, for a person buying a property, that the question of whether it was liable for land tax at any particular point, given the size of the outgoings when you are buying a house, would be not a huge issue to be addressed in terms of the overall cost of the purchase of that property and the associated costs.
Madam Speaker, I think Mr Cornwell would have to raise an individual case if he wanted to convince me on that. The fact is that we do not have pro rata arrangements - this matter arose last year when this whole land tax question was under debate in the Assembly - basically for simplicity of operation. It makes for
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