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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 1623 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I invite members who have received this to have a look at the Arthur Andersen study and see what it says. It is relied upon as authority for this proposition. This is what it says, if I can find it:

... the Bill will give effect to a retrospective tax, with insurers having limited capacity to recover the full amount of contribution required from them by applying levies at the rate which has been actuarially calculated for the Insurance Council.

Nowhere in this report do we actually see the actuarial calculations which supposedly show a higher level of impact on ratepayers than in New South Wales. In fact, this report by Arthur Andersen expressly says that they are relying on information from the Insurance Council that the impact will be heavier than in New South Wales.

Mr Speaker, I have written to the Insurance Council asking whether I can see this information, this actuarial study. I also met, incidentally, with an officer of the Insurance Council who promised me he would give this actuarial study to us the week before last. More than 10 days have gone by and there is no sign of this actuarial study. I have now received a copy of a one-page document which I will now table. This is the tonne of information which the Insurance Council claims to have given to the ACT Government about the actuarial study. It contains about five sentences with no justification, no support, of the claim that there is any actuarial impact higher than the level in New South Wales. It simply asserts, "I have calculated the FSL levy to be", and then various percentages are given. There is no justification, no explanation, no basis on which it is put to people that it will be at a level higher than New South Wales. Mr Speaker, I table that document and I invite those members who have been swallowing the guff from the Insurance Council to have a good, hard look at it and see what kind of organisation is running this campaign.

Mr Speaker, we have already had the debate about the impost being on rates. This Government went to the last election saying it would not increase rates above the level of the CPI. If we put a levy, or a tax, or a poll tax or whatever onto rates we are in breach of that promise.

Mr Smyth: Was Mr Kaine part of that?

MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, Mr Kaine went to the election with that same promise, and now proposes that we should do that instead. One can consider the equity of that if one likes. Mr Speaker, Andrew Jackson, a former US President, said this:

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

In my view, Mr Speaker, what we have is a perfect illustration of that in this debate. I think it is offensive that members in this place have relied so heavily on the misinformation from the Insurance Council. It is to their great discredit that they have done so. These are the people who behaved in recent days in a disgraceful fashion with respect to their own policyholders in Wollongong who have been denied the right to be able to recover for devastating losses occasioned by the floods in that part of Australia.

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