Page 3601 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 19 October 1993
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Mr Kaine: Mostly off-road vehicles.
MR HUMPHRIES: And mostly off-road vehicles. The impact of a 7.08c per litre increase on those vehicles, on those industries, will be quite enormous. It will translate into lost jobs.
The approximate cost of diesel fuel to home heating customers at this stage is 70c a litre. This means that this tax will raise the cost of home heating for those people by some 10 per cent. A 10 per cent tax has been placed on these people. The Chief Minister has described this as a tax on heating fuel and says that it is appropriate because a similar tax is applied to other forms of home heating in the ACT. With great respect, that is total bunkum. There is no tax on any other form of home heating - at least not in the ACT, at least not in the direct sense of there being a tax on a transaction to purchase home heating fuel or home heating energy. It is true that the Australian Gas Light Co., which supplies gas in the ACT, pays a tax to government based on its turnover. It is true that ACTEW pays a dividend to government based on some formula which is not necessarily linked to turnover but certainly is based on a dividend it pays to government. But they are not taxes on transactions because, clearly, they are not related to what the purchasers actually pay at the bowser, or whatever other form of supply it might be, for the quantity of fuel they are receiving to heat their homes.
To say that there is a tax on electricity is as true as to say that there is a tax on sandwiches, in the sense that a shopkeeper who gives you a sandwich at lunchtime pays payroll tax and he pays rates and he pays other government taxes. That does not mean that you are paying tax on the sandwich, except indirectly. In that sense, there is a tax on various forms of heating in the ACT.
Mr Kaine: It is the hidden tax on electrical energy that is the problem - the $25m dividend.
MR HUMPHRIES: They are hidden taxes, as Mr Kaine correctly points out. There is no direct tax on any other form of heating energy in the ACT. There is now to be such a tax on those people who use diesel fuel.
Mr Kaine: Guess what? This is a consumption tax.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, Mr Kaine has again got it right. This is a consumption tax. It is a tax on consumption. It is a tax on the amount of this particular fuel that you use. That is not the basis on which other indirect taxes on heating and energy in the ACT are levied. It is entirely inappropriate to make that comparison. I will also have something to say in a moment about the inequity of the rates of taxation, if you consider them that, which are charged between these different forms of energy.
Farmers are also affected by these changes. The average farmer customer will pay an extra $325.83 per annum to run a farm in the ACT, at a time when farmers across the nation, no less than in the ACT, are facing extremely serious challenges. So much for the Government's concern about the rural sector! During the period from 1 November 1992 to 6 October 1993 there were 172 industrial uses as well, and I have referred to the number of litres they used. These forms of taxation are not equitable. The Chief Minister told the Assembly only today, "It is inequitable that people enjoy concessions on this type of fuel when concessions do not apply to other types of fuel".
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