Page 4620 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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Ms Follett: Ha, ha!
MR KAINE: See, this is just a joke. The business community would not know. Rosemary Follett knows, but the business community would not know. She discovered that 15 years was not so good, so 25 years is a good old guess. In connection with this there is this letter of 1 December:
In regard to the application of stamp duty over 25 years, -
this was after she had her second thoughts and came out with her 25-year period -
the following points remain pertinent.
The legislation equates a long lease with a transfer of an interest in land.
That is the first point. The letter continues:
Of course it is not the same.
Nor is it. The letter goes on:
The natural extension of the Government's argument is to impose duty at the transfer rate.
This is the point that the Chief Minister and Mr Connolly, the Attorney-General, ought to listen to:
However in the case of a transfer it would be a transferee who would pay the duty, not a transferor. The higher duty in the case of a long term lease is being placed on the lessor.
So, in other words, they are not only changing the nature of the law but also imposing the obligation on a different person. This is what this law does. Are you listening, Mr Connolly? Do you think this is good law? The Canberra business community is giving you contrary advice.
Mr Connolly: Because the Canberra business community always wants a tax break. It is all they ever want.
MR KAINE: But, of course, you do not want to know. You say that this is tax avoidance. I would like to see some statistics on how much tax avoidance there has been. Can you produce any? I come back to the question: Why do you not take to your tax Act with a scalpel and have a little delicate operation rather than attack it with a broadsword? You are doing injury to a lot of people who do not deserve it, but you do not want to listen. They tell you this, they give you the good advice that they have at their fingertips, and you just thrust it aside.
I do not accept the Chief Minister's argument that 25 years is a good term, any more than I accepted her advice that 15 years was. I accept the advice of people who are in the business, who know the problems, who have advised the Chief Minister, and whose advice has been arbitrarily set aside without any justification whatsoever. I come back to the point. The Chief Minister has
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