Page 3760 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
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Madam Speaker, I will take this opportunity to mention, with reference to the issue as a whole, that Mr Humphries drew to my attention earlier today the issue about the letter from the New South Wales Office of State Revenue. Through the good offices of the officers in the Chief Minister's Department, I was able to speak to the Commissioner of State Taxes in New South Wales. He assured me, Madam Speaker, about the areas that I had some doubts about in terms of compliance. He certainly has the power, and would use the power, to remove the New South Wales exemption certificate of a person who was using it in the ACT for on-road purposes or for home heating.
It was interesting to hear Mr Humphries mention the home heating situation of somebody coming up with a 44-gallon drum. I suppose they must be 80-litre drums these days.
Mr Westende: It is 200 litres.
MR MOORE: I am sorry; 200-litre drums. We are speaking, Madam Speaker, of over three-and-a-half million litres of fuel. That would involve an awful lot of drums on trailers going between Canberra and Queanbeyan. Exactly the same issue applies to earth-moving equipment and so forth. Mr Humphries mentioned the backhoe on the back of a truck or a trailer. What we are really interested in in revenue terms is over eight-and-a-half million litres of diesel fuel. If one person goes and illegally fills his backhoe and gets away with it, well, that is the way the law works. We know that people get away with breaking the law. But, if he is caught, the Commissioner of State Taxes in New South Wales assured me on the phone that that person would lose their certificate, whether identified by his own officers or by ACT officers for non-compliance. That is the assurance that I have, and I accept it.
I discussed it with Ms Szuty and I appreciate the fact that those officers provided that briefing. They were very good in giving us their time, both the other night and also earlier today. I would like personally to make sure that they understand that we appreciated it; that it is on the record that we appreciate the effort they went to, to answer not only our original questions, but questions on the questions, and further questions after that. I am sure that they considered us quite a nuisance, and that is fine; but we were not going to support something that was going to be a major disadvantage to the people of the ACT. I have moved these amendments together, but effectively it is one amendment that provides for exempt fuel for farmers. It seems to me that by adopting them we will have a very sensible and equitable Bill.
There is another issue that I would like to deal with, Madam Speaker. I would not have had a chance to deal with it other than by seeking leave, but I think it would be appropriate to deal with it now, just briefly, with your indulgence. I refer to the subsidy on diesel fuel compared to heating oil. Far more people in the ACT use home heating oil than use diesel oil, according to my understanding, and there is still a 12c advantage to those using diesel oil. The other thing that is most important, of course, is that environmentally it would be far better if these people were using natural gas as the method of firing their furnaces, rather than diesel oil, because the impact of natural gas on the environment is significantly less than the impact of diesel oil. So there is actually an environmental reason. It makes good sense to go about it in this way.
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