Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (11 November) . . Page.. 3937 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

place recommend to John Howard that there be a community summit on tax, that the community be involved in this, because basically at the moment the tax debate is being hijacked by the business community, who have only a narrow interest. The focus of the debate should not be all about efficiency or about whether we want a GST or not. Other critical goals of taxation - such as equity, employment, environmental sustainability and ensuring that there is an adequate taxation base - are being forgotten.

I believe that it is essential that we keep at the forefront of our minds what tax is for. The reality is that Australia's revenue base has fallen $8 billion to $10 billion in the last 10 years. An adequate tax base is essential; otherwise, social services will keep being cut, and disadvantaged groups and the environment, in particular, will continue to suffer. I was personally very disappointed to see, in a paper tabled by Mrs Carnell last week, that apparently there was consensus that one absolutely key platform of any debate is that there will be no increase in overall tax and that there should be reductions in personal income tax. If that is what is coming out of these meetings, then we do have a problem.

Mr Moore says that he is open to seeing taxation being debated in that way; he wants to see whether it is necessary and equitable for the society that we increase some kind of taxation. Of course, it has to be part of the debate. It is very worrying that the debate has been narrowed to the degree it has. I think the main focus of ACOSS's response was that it wanted to see this debate broadened so that there is a full understanding of the implications of never raising income taxes - in fact, of ensuring reductions in personal income tax. We might have to pay a great price for that, in terms of equity in our society and social harmony generally.

On the issue of domestic violence, I understand that Mrs Carnell was not comfortable with the position that was put there. I commend her for that. It was an outrageous effort. One hour is hardly a summit, and the amount of money was a pittance. I also commend the Chief Minister on dissenting from the Commonwealth's international negotiating position on climate change. The measures included in the environmental package by the Prime Minister are interesting - encouraging reduction of residential emissions; reduction of industry emissions, including through expansion of the greenhouse challenge program and improving energy codes and standards; reduction of emissions from motor vehicles; and reduction of energy sector emissions, including by accelerating energy market reform and encouraging use of renewables.

The energy market reform is interesting. It is not necessarily going to have a good outcome for the environment; but it has been put there as one of the dot points. For all these matters that are listed, though, we would like to see real programs put in place in the ACT. For some time, we have had with the parliamentary drafters several Bills which would directly address issues of reducing emissions from residences in the ACT. We are consistently arguing for alternatives to private cars and transport. Of course, we want also to improve energy codes and standards. We had a debate on that just recently in the context of residential tenancies. So, we look forward to working with local and Federal government to actually turn that into real programs which will bring about real results.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .