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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 640 ..
MR STANHOPE
: I have just sought leave to speak again, Mr Speaker.MR SPEAKER: Is leave granted?
Ms Carnell: Jon, before I say yes or no, is everyone going to speak again?
MR STANHOPE: I am going to correct the mistruth you just told, Chief Minister. I am going to quote back to you from Hansard what Mr Quinlan said so that we can correct the record.
Ms Carnell: But you do not have to do that in another speech.
MR STANHOPE: You were completely and totally wrong, Chief Minister. I seek leave to speak again, Mr Speaker.
Leave granted.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The very sneering conclusion that the Chief Minister just gave to this debate put the lie to any suggestion that she was anything other than mischievous and entirely political in this stunt. She just made a completely sneering, negative, carping speech. Add to that the extent to which she was simply wrong. The extent to which the Chief Minister, in her speech just now, attributed to Mr Quinlan suggestions that she claims he made in his speech can be put to the test here and now.
We all heard the Chief Minister say categorically that Mr Quinlan had unequivocally advocated that the ALP would be repealing 14 taxes. Let me read the paragraph. This is what Mr Quinlan said. When we take this in the context of what the Chief Minister has just put on the record in this place, we can treat her entire speech with the contempt it deserves. When you lead off your speech by making this sort of allegation against the shadow Treasurer and then carry on with the sort of garbage that went on, the body of it has to be tested by the head of it. This is what Mr Quinlan said:
When we look at the taxes that we levy in the ACT you may be surprised to find that the Productivity Commission concluded that 14 of the different taxes we levy in the ACT are either highly or mildly regressive. This puts the lie to some extent to the Treasurer's claim of this being a clever and caring capital.
Administration and compliance is largely self-evident and relates to how much the Government can keep and what the costs are of administering those taxes. We recognise on this side of the house that a lot of work has been done within the ACT administration to bring in tighter legislation on tax, and for that the Government should be congratulated.
The shadow Treasurer, with absolute graciousness, was acknowledging that the Government has done some good work in this area. What did the Chief Minister just throw at us in relation to what she suggested the shadow Treasurer said? Absolute nonsense. The rest of the speech should be treated in exactly the same way, with the
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