Page 3604 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 19 October 1993
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Mr Berry: You have the earnest cloak on again and it is not convincing anybody.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am afraid that your Bill is not convincing anybody, because the State Revenue Office of New South Wales - and I suggest that you ring them yourself, Mr Berry - suggest that there is no disability on obtaining a certificate in New South Wales, any more than there is a problem with my driving across the border to Queanbeyan. (Extension of time granted) The fact of life is that there is not any problem with that. It is possible to obtain a certificate in New South Wales. If I understand correctly what the officers of Ms Follett's Treasury said to us, they did not deny that that was the case. They did not deny that it was possible to obtain a certificate in New South Wales. What they suggested to us - I think I have got this correct - is that somehow it is possible for revenue officers between the two jurisdictions to trace fuel which was used in the ACT. I think that is fanciful. I do not know how they could do that, in the first place. Secondly, I do not understand what legal basis they have for saying that a person who purchases fuel in New South Wales, who has a certificate to that effect, who even freely admits that he is going to use it in the ACT, can be prevented from doing so. I do not know what legal impediment there is to doing so.
The critical question, of course, is where the sale occurs. If the sale occurs in New South Wales, New South Wales taxes apply to it. If I purchase diesel fuel in New South Wales and New South Wales does not require the payment of a 7.08c per litre diesel fuel - - -
Mr Connolly: If you have an exemption certificate.
MR HUMPHRIES: If I have an exemption certificate - - -
Mr Connolly: Meeting the criteria in New South Wales.
MR HUMPHRIES: The criterion in New South Wales, to answer Mr Connolly's interjection, is that you are using the fuel for off-road purposes - not off-road purposes in the ACT or New South Wales or anywhere else, but off-road purposes. I have a copy of the relevant page of the Act that you can have a look at. Perhaps I have been misadvised by the New South Wales Revenue Office. Ms Follett might care to indicate to me why it is that this advice is inaccurate. Certainly, it is not obtained by reading the New South Wales Act.
This Bill, if enacted, will cause the ACT's regime of revenue collection to be out of sync with that of New South Wales, and that, of itself, is a temptation. It is a temptation to other people to abuse the system. It is a temptation to other people to take advantage of arrangements which allow them to purchase fuel in New South Wales. It is a temptation to some businesses to move across to New South Wales. A backhoe hirer might purchase a great deal of diesel fuel each year and wants to be able to continue to do so more cheaply than otherwise would be the case. If you imagine that that person would not seriously consider crossing the border and setting up in New South Wales, you have rocks in your head. Of course he will do that.
Ms Follett: And you think they deserve a concession - more than unemployed people, more than pensioners?
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