Page 2292 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 15 September 1992
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planning than are single householders or house owners whose second property is often their sole source of retirement income. These are people who have fixed incomes that are suffering from recession already. Additional penalties are neither appropriate nor beneficial. The emphasis here should be on enabling people to comply with the law, not on forcing them into a situation where they will have to pay a 20 per cent penalty or a higher rate of tax, or both, if they cannot comply with the law. That is punitive and it certainly is not social justice.
There need not be additional costs involved in sending out separate land tax and rates notices. It has been asserted that if the Government adopts my philosophy it will cost them more. It need not. The objection holds no water. Other government notices of charges are sent out a month or more in advance. I quote the motor vehicle registration notices that go out many weeks before they are due. The land tax assessments can be sent out along with the quarterly rates notices and it will not cost them a cent to do it. So there is no additional cost involved in sending out the notices ahead of time.
The Government's approach to the land tax and their Bill demonstrates no clear or lateral thinking. This Bill is a bureaucratic document that fails to rethink the problem. The Act itself was wrong. The Government is merely perpetuating the wrong by the Bill that they are now bringing forward to amend it. It pursues a course of action that sees the community not in terms of a community with needs that have to be met but in terms of miscreants and tax avoiders. That is what the Government is on about; everybody is out there avoiding tax. It fails to take the opportunity to solve all the problems that I have identified with this tax in a simple, fair and effective way.
The Government no doubt will pass this Bill today with the support of the so-called Independents, and in the process they will dismiss the Opposition's Bill. That outcome will represent no victory to the community that is awaiting some leadership and some relief from this iniquitous tax. It will not solve the problems that we already know about but will, I expect, add further to the community's disaffection with the Government's attitude and performance. As I said before, it is going to create more problems than it solves.
Madam Speaker, I reaffirm that when the Liberal Party takes government at the next election this iniquitous Follett land tax on small property owners will be repealed. In the meantime we will do everything we can to eliminate bias and unfairness in its application.
MS SZUTY (8.51): Madam Speaker, I support the concept of land taxes, as I feel that they provide a sustainable and equitable base for the raising of revenue, especially when compared with other forms of taxation which impact more adversely on low income earners, pensioners and social security benefits recipients. As a community, we need to share the burden of paying for the services that are provided by government for the benefit of all citizens. If the land taxes were abolished or made ineffectual, additional revenue would need to be raised in other areas.
What I do feel it is important to note about both the Opposition's and the Government's proposed amendments to the Rates and Land Tax Act is that they have included arrangements for quarterly payments of land tax. While I feel that land tax should be imposed on an asset that is income producing and also provides the owner with a large Commonwealth income tax deduction, there is
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