Page 2300 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 15 September 1992
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and that is to pass Mr Kaine's Bill to provide real relief, real fairness, or at least an approach to real fairness, in the operation of the ACT's land tax. The government Bill will not do that. I therefore ask the Independents, in particular, to consider once more whether they are really achieving the objectives that the community is looking to us tonight to fulfil, and that is to make this land tax more equitable, more fair, than it currently is.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (9.18), in reply: Madam Speaker, I thank members for their comments in this cognate debate. Could I just reiterate the announcement that I made on 7 August of this year concerning changes that were being proposed to land tax. I think there has been a fair amount of misunderstanding, most notably perhaps by Mr Humphries, as to what those changes involved. The first change that I was putting forward was an amnesty period to allow property to be transferred from a private company into the shareholders' own names without attracting stamp duty, providing that certain conditions were met. Madam Speaker, I would have considered that that is a one-off transaction. I cannot understand Mr Humphries's apparent misunderstanding of the nature of that transaction. It is a transfer from a private company into individuals' names. That amnesty would get people out of paying a quite large amount of stamp duty on the transfer of that property. The intention to protect them from having to pay that stamp duty is quite clear to me and I do not understand Mr Humphries's apparent mystification over it.
Madam Speaker, I also announced that there would be an exemption from land tax for a property which is occupied as a principal place of residence by someone who has a life tenancy under a will. Mr Kaine has spoken, I believe, as though that were not the case. In fact it is and that change is being made. I have also announced the extension of the current exemption available to people who were transferred because of their employment to include the spouse of that person. I think that is a quite significant broadening of that exemption as well. I also announced that the date for payment of land tax had been changed to 15 September, rather than 15 August, in order to allow people to have a little more time in case they were experiencing cash flow problems, and also to allow them to consider their position in relation to that payment.
Madam Speaker, I made that announcement on 7 August. Since that time the Government has considered the matter further. We have had consultations with a number of people and a number of groups, and we have added, in the Bill before us tonight, a couple of further items. The most notable, I think, is the extension of the ground for exemption on compassionate grounds, because it includes unemployment as a ground for exemption on compassionate grounds. I think members opposite have not fully appreciated that point; that a person who, because of unemployment, must leave town to find work, and is able to demonstrate that fact to the Commissioner for Revenue, will be exempt on compassionate grounds. I think that members should at least give us credit for that.
I have also, as members have noted, included an instalment regime. I did that, Madam Speaker, because it is clearly the wish of a significant number of constituents and a significant number of members of this house. I will be blunt about it. It is not my preferred option, and I have said that on many occasions. I think it is cumbersome and expensive, but I am a realist. Madam Speaker, I believe that it is more appropriate that the Bill which the Government puts forward encompass all of those changes, rather than relying on some rather ill-thought-out proposals from members opposite.
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