Page 186 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 17 February 1993
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MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (4.27): This is clearly a case where the Government does not want to hear the facts. It has made up its mind and is saying, "Do not bother talking to us. We know best". The Chief Minister has just admitted that these clauses, by and large, exist in State legislation in New South Wales.
Ms Follett: And they are not used.
MR KAINE: But you also just said that by incorporating them it would allow tax evasion and undermine the fabric of the Act. Is that a fact?
Ms Follett: Yes.
MR KAINE: Is payroll tax collection in New South Wales and Victoria undermined because these provisions are in their Acts?
Ms Follett: Yes.
MR KAINE: Rubbish! You have presented no evidence at all to suggest that. I submit that there is no evidence available to support your contention. But you have made up your mind and you have your Bill in place. You have given the Commissioner for ACT Revenue very wide powers of discretion, unlike anything equivalent in any State, and you have determined that that is the only way to go. You do not want to know about any other course of action. You believe that you have the numbers to defeat this, so you are saying, "Let us not even talk about it".
Madam Speaker, I submit that the Chief Minister has not made her point. The Chief Minister and the Labor Government have taken a particular stand on payroll tax since 1989. The original Payroll Tax Bill put in place by the Labor Party in 1989 was flawed. They have even resisted introducing the service provisions that the Chief Minister has just been talking about. They did it only because they were forced to do it. Now, even though the Act is still flawed, they still do not want to hear anything that would suggest that the Act has flaws in it.
I suggest that it is about time they opened their minds and listened to the people on whom this Act impacts and heard what they have to say. Mr De Domenico did not sit in his office and make things up. He has spoken to a very large number of people in the business world on whom this Act impacts, and they have difficulty with it. It is only a few months ago that we had to confront the difficulty of people in the computer industry, but the Labor Party did not want to know about that either. In December 1989 the Government shut their minds to the arguments being put forward by those people and took two years to amend the Act to take their problems into account. Presumably, if this Government stays in place, in two years' time we will still be discussing these points and trying to take the flaws out of the Act - - -
Mr Lamont: That is right, because Paul Keating will still be Prime Minister.
MR KAINE: No, he will not. He will not be the Prime Minister beyond 13 March. On that matter the Chief Minister continues to draw red herrings across the trail. She simply does not understand financial management at all. Some of the things that she was saying about the consequences of Fightback and - - -
Debate interrupted.
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