Page 1615 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
What this Bill is about is a tax on building. Labor members say, "We want to increase building and we are going to tax it". You do not increase things by taxing them. You reduce things when you create an impost. As I mentioned earlier, when you tell people that you will take their money unless they spend it on something, they will spend it on something. Look at what the elderly do in Australia with the money that they have saved for all their lives. They spend it. One of the Labor members mentioned that people would like to have an apprenticeship, that people would like to have a job. Let me let you in on a secret. Businesses would like to give them what they want, but they find it difficult when dealing with one government tax and one bureaucratic impost after another. Businesses in the ACT, as around Australia, do not need your help. The only thing they want is for you to get off their back. Let the competitive nature of this industry and other industries take effect; it will work and people will work. The more you steal of Mr Kaine's dollar and put in the Treasurer's pocket, the more we lose. When it comes back to someone else, to Mr Westende, for example, he finds he gets only 20c. On the trip over the road and back again, we lose about 80c. That is what happens when government takes money.
Let us highlight the fact that the industry is not going to direct and control the money that would be collected by imposing a tax on construction. It is the worst principle we can have. Let us look at the truth. The truth is that if the timing had been different they would not have thought it so funny. They would have stood up and said, "We must do this for the people in the construction industry. We must have training". The Government's timing was bad because their Labor colleagues in that other place have already acknowledged that the training scheme is a nonsense and that it is not working. This one will not work either. Thank heavens it is not going to get up, in all probability, because it would put more people out of work, as do all the imposts that you bring in. Why not encourage business to do something, instead of trying to force them at the point of a gun?
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (10.13), in reply: Madam Speaker, I will be closing the debate at this stage. This Bill should be supported because it provides for much better education and training. That alone is sufficient reason to have this Bill passed. I was surprised to hear the debate in this Assembly tonight. Members forget that aspect. We are significantly improving the calibre of our work force in this specific industry. This Bill should be passed also because it will provide a better quality product at the end. The building industry, as a result of this Bill, will give a better product to the people who purchase houses or have extensions built. I think we would all agree that that is eminently desirable.
Mrs Carnell: How?
MR WOOD: I will give you some examples in a little while. Thirdly, this Bill should be supported because it will materially assist our young people, and some of our not so young people, into a more assured position in the building industry. It will help significantly, as pointed out in the Commonwealth's white paper, to remove some of the problems of unemployment.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .