Page 2445 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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MR DE DOMENICO: Yes; but obviously he is in a different faction from Mr Lamont and some of his colleagues. Even Senator Cook realises the reality of the thing. You have to get the cost of labour down to enable people to employ more people. It is very logical and it makes sense. You do not have to reinvent the wheel to realise what the problem is, and this budget did not address that point at all.
Mr Cornwell: They are frowning over there. They do not understand.
MR DE DOMENICO: They are frowning over there. Instead of cutting the financial institutions duty in order to attract capital to the ACT, what does this Government do? It increases it. Once again one would think that the logical thing to do, if you want business to come into town, is not to overburden it with things like the financial institutions duty but to decrease it so that it makes it attractive. But, no; that is rednecked. It is throwing people into the street, as Mr Lamont says. But that is logical business sense.
Of course, in this budget this Government did nothing for the business community because it knows nothing about business. Let me quote you a couple of examples. (Extension of time granted) Thank you. There is an industry in this town, in Mitchell in fact, that is now researching, developing, manufacturing and exporting some of the best high-tech equipment that is being used in satellites that are sent into space from time to time. Someone ought to go out to this company and say, "Listen, you are doing a fantastic job. We welcome you in Canberra; please stay in Canberra".
I will tell you what is happening there. Not one person from the Chief Minister's Economic Development Division has ever been out there to have a look around. Unless somebody goes out there very smartly, this company has a chance of moving to South Australia. It has received not one incentive, not one iota of incentive, not even a slap on the back, from anybody on the government side. I am saying to you that that is the sort of company that we ought to be encouraging to stay in Canberra, even if we have to give it some sort of incentive, for heaven's sake, because it is employing people. It is putting Canberra on the map in world-class research and development. There is another thing that this budget does not do; it does nothing about companies like that.
Another engineering company whose present payroll is $480,000, which is under the payroll tax threshold, wants to employ another engineer. It is finding work easier to come by from time to time because it does very good research and development work. It will not be employing an extra engineer because, even at $40,000, which would bring its payroll up to $520,000, plus the add-on costs, which would make it a bit higher, it automatically then has to pay payroll tax. To employ one junior engineer at $40,000 it will cost that company somewhere around $85,000. That is what this Government could have done; it could have given some sort of incentive for those people to employ more people, but it did not.
Mr Kaine: Wait for the OH and S oncost as well.
MR DE DOMENICO: I have refrained from talking about OH and S, Mr Kaine, because some people on the other side of the house might be inclined to say that I am pre-empting debate on something that may be coming up from time to time. We have some more on that, so do not worry. That is a classic example of this Government saying that it is a government of consultation.
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