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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (11 November) . . Page.. 3934 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

For me, there were other issues about health and education. I believe we should not trust a Liberal government on those issues. At least Dr Hewson was honest about it. Mr Howard promised not to attack those. Of course, since then he has broken his promises in an awful way. It seems to me, however, that it is time to review this view of a consumption tax.

The reason is that it seems to me that, in our most progressive forms of taxation, the really wealthy wind up paying very little tax. In that sense, it is effectively regressive, because the very people who ought to be paying the taxes are not. I realise that I am not using the words in the technical sense.

Mr Humphries: Is it technical?

MR MOORE: Technically, I have just explained my view. Perhaps you missed it. I just explained what I mean by a progressive tax, which is not different from Wayne Berry's understanding. In this case, what I am saying is that at the moment we basically have very few ways of taxing the very wealthy at all. It seems to me that a consumption tax does contribute to that. Therefore, I think there is a role for a consumption tax. But the thing that worries me most is that the agreement generally across the major political parties and across the States seems to be that we should have no increase in the tax burden. This issue is very interesting. The other night I heard Mrs Kernot speaking to teachers - - -

Mr Humphries: Who?

MR MOORE: The former leader of the Democrats, now a member of the Labor Party. Ms Tucker was there. Mrs Kernot ran a whole series of things that I thought were very sensible, I must say. The disappointment to me was that, in the questions afterwards, nobody said, "How are you going to pay for this? You are no longer a Democrat; you are a member of the Labor Party. Do you advocate an increase in taxation?". As far as I know, there are very few members of parliament across Australia who have advocated an increase in taxation. I use this opportunity to go for the bed tax again - one of my favourite forms of taxation. I believe we should have an increase in taxation. I have said that very publicly. I do not mind saying it and I think it is time that we also had an honest approach from people who say, "Yes; it is time for us to carefully increase our taxation bases in order to meet these specific needs". What strikes me is that neither of the major parties is doing that. Are the Greens doing that? I am not sure; so, we will listen and hear. I think they are, actually.

Then we run into the issue of climate change. I want to make it very clear that I congratulate the Chief Minister for her stance - obviously, a very difficult stance to take when every other State and Territory agrees with the Prime Minister and ours is the only jurisdiction that says, "No; this is unacceptable". I must say that it is appropriate. I am disappointed that Mr Berry did not congratulate the Chief Minister here. In opposition, you do not always have to be kicking heads; there are times when people actually take the right action. You should also say, "Yes; that was the right thing to do". Indeed, it was the right thing to do. It is interesting, as the Chief Minister mentioned and is obvious from the statement, that even the Labor Premier of New South Wales agreed to this position on climate change. I must say that is very disappointing.

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