Page 2297 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 15 September 1992
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MR CORNWELL: It is an ideological hang-up, Mr Kaine. I agree with you. The problem is that this Government is against those people who help themselves. I told you that it was the politics of fear, and it is. They fear people like this. When you have people in your debt, when they are on pensions or when you have them in rebated housing, you have them in your power and they have to do as you say. The problem is that when they become financially independent they are independent themselves. They do not have to listen to you. They do not have to obey you people. That is what you do not like.
I repeat that there is a great deal of political influence in this. Mr Lamont's interjection about the rich simply confirms this. You have an ideological hang-up about these people. You are determined to tax them out of existence because you think that that way you will create power over them, the way you like to control everybody else. We will continue to oppose this. I repeat that in government we will abolish this iniquitous, unfair and socially unjust tax.
MR HUMPHRIES (9.09): Madam Speaker - - -
Mr Kaine: The Government does not want to defend its Bill.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, I am surprised about the Government's reluctance to speak on these Bills. They are quite significant pieces of legislation, but obviously none are interested. Madam Speaker, I might, first of all, declare my own interest in this debate. I am probably one of those that Mr Lamont calls "the rich" because under my house I have a granny flat which I rent out. I might say that I suspect that my net worth in this world is a lot less than Mr Lamont's, but we might compare - - -
Mrs Grassby: But do you have a granny in it?
MR HUMPHRIES: I might one day.
Mr Kaine: They will be amending the Act, next, to get you.
MR HUMPHRIES: They probably will. Madam Speaker, I think that the Independents, who obviously intend to support this government Bill, have been conned by what the Government has done here today. The Bill from the Government that we are debating is a reactive Bill. It is a Bill the sole purpose of which is to prevent the Opposition from responding to genuine community concern and at the same time allow the Government to appear as if it is meeting those same community concerns; but the Government knows, and we know, and apparently the community knows, but apparently the Independents do not know, that in fact the government Bill does not do that. The government Bill fails to do that. The government Bill has been pre-empted by Mr Kaine's Bill, which we are debating cognately with this Bill tonight.
In choosing between the two Bills that are before us tonight, Mr Kaine's Bill and the Government's Bill, we need to be aware of the fact that these two Bills go in completely different directions. Mr Kaine's Bill is designed to alleviate the burden of land tax in this community. It is designed to respond to the very problems in the administration of the land tax which we have identified for some time and which the Government at first denied existed. It has now come belatedly to the conclusion that they do exist and ought in some way, haphazardly as it turns out, be responded to.
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