Page 2480 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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in your pocket. This is from a socially just Labor government: For those earning less than $23,200 a year, the rebate from Mr Dawkins, the socially just Treasurer, is $1.92 a week. What a big-hearted man he is - $1.92 a week. That is about six litres of petrol. If you earn over $20,700 a year you get a tax cut, but if you earn less than $35,000 the other taxes you will be paying will leave you worse off, further widening the gap between rich and poor.
Mr Berry: I can see why you did not give him the Treasurer's job.
MR DE DOMENICO: Once you start balancing your health budget, you can talk about people counting, Mr Berry. The only place you can count is in the Cabinet room because the left-wing maddies support you. So do not start talking about counting. The second round of tax cuts, due in 1996, are being deferred to 1998 now, but they are likely to be later than that.
Mr Kaine: Those of us who live to 1998 might get a tax cut.
MR DE DOMENICO: That is right. Perhaps Mr Dawkins has that in his mind in his 20:20 vision for the year 2020, Mr Kaine. Let us have a look at the cash register. This is a socially just Labor government and we hear about unemployment and social justice and all these sorts of things. All sales taxes have gone up by one per cent, followed by another one per cent next year on all sorts of luxuries that I mentioned before. Have a listen to these luxuries: Biscuits, fruit juice, furniture, heating appliances, and so on.
This mob here were saying, "Oh, under the Liberals' Fightback they are going to put taxes on milk and fruit juices". That is exactly what Mr Dawkins did last night, with the stroke of a pen. What humbug, Mr Deputy Speaker! This budget is going to hurt the ordinary person of the ACT. People can talk about fiscal drags and J-curves and all sorts of economic mumbo jumbo. When it means money in the pocket, every ACT taxpayer will be at least $500 a year worse off under the Dawkins socially just budget than they were before. That is a fact.
Let us summarise it again: Wholesale sales tax, up across the board by one per cent, plus another one per cent; petrol up by 5c a litre, and 10c a litre next year, hitting the very people this Government purports to represent. Why? There is an increase of over 30 per cent in the tax on wine. As Mr Kaine said, it will wipe out the ACT wine industry. Cigarettes are up. If you smoke, have a drink of wine, and drive a car that uses leaded petrol you are really gone. And this is called social justice. Ms Follett talks about jobs. For heaven's sake, there is not one job in this budget for anyone. Mrs Carnell mentioned Senator Button and Neville Wran, so there are two jobs. We have heard about York Park and all sorts of things, but there is no real incentive anywhere for small businesses in the ACT. The costs are going to go a bit higher once the fuel costs of transporting goods to the ACT are included. We know that the only way goods seem to come into the ACT is by road transport that uses petrol, so the cost of everything is going to go up a bit more. The people who are going to be affected are the very people these Labor Party humbugs purport to represent. The true believers, if they ever existed, have now become the true deceivers, and l-a-w, law, now should read l-i-e, lie.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Lamont, you have something under three minutes.
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