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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 636 ..

MS CARNELL

to work with the crossbenches and always have been, but is this a sensible approach for good government? I would have to say no, and I think it is about time we came to grips with it.

Mr Speaker, I was very interested to hear a number of the comments made in the debate. Some of them were curious, to say the least. You could almost say curiouser and curiouser, particularly some of the comments made by Mr Quinlan. He did speak about a number of important areas and did suggest the sort of approach that he might take if he was Treasurer. He committed the Labor Party to the abolition of 14 taxes which the Productivity Commission has concluded to be regressive. He indicated in his speech that the Labor Party does not support regressive taxation and therefore would get rid of it. Mr Speaker, I found that interesting. I went to the Productivity Commission's report - - -

Mr Stanhope: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Quinlan said no such thing.

MS CARNELL: He did. I promise you he did.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MS CARNELL: He did, Mr Speaker. He said the Labor Party does not support regressive taxation. He indicated - - -

Mr Stanhope: Mr Speaker, in no way did Mr Quinlan suggest that the Labor Party would be getting rid of any such tax.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Stanhope, if Mr Quinlan wishes to seek to correct what he regards as a mistake, he can use standing order 46.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, it was certainly my understanding of Mr Quinlan's speech that he committed the Labor Party to the abolition of 14 taxes which the Productivity Commissioner has concluded to be regressive.

Mr Smyth: And urged us to do the same.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I think he said - - -

Mr Smyth: All power to your arm!

MS CARNELL: More power to my elbow, I think he said, to do the same. His words. Those 14 taxes are very interesting. I looked them up in the Productivity Commission's report. They are such taxes as land tax, a tax that the Labor Party put on, conveyancing duty, BAD, a marketable security duty, a loan security duty, stamp duties generally, and some of the ones we cannot levy any more, such as the franchise fees. Quick arithmetic reveals that these 14 taxes raise $237m. As I said, they include land tax, franchise fees, stamp duties and BAD tax.

Mr Speaker, it is quite an extraordinary commitment from Mr Quinlan to abolish $237m of Territory taxes. This is at a time when we have an operating loss. This would blow out our operating loss to more than $300m, unless, of course, Mr Quinlan is planning to

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