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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 392 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

During Mr Humphries' speech he talked about a reality check. He talked about the extra $216m that the Territory would get and he talked about the tax cuts that would be implemented. Now, by my sums, somewhere in there we have created a lot of money somehow, or, conversely, we have joined the cargo cult because we are still talking about the Government taking a quantum of money, in one manner or form, for you and me, and spending it generally for the community through the normal revenue and expenditure processes. I am sure there is an element missing in what Mr Humphries has put across. If there are going to be these gains, then, unless there is some economic miracle flowing from the GST, somebody is going to lose. I think it was quite clearly pointed out by Mr Stanhope that there are regressive elements of this particular tax.

Now, when we talk about a growth tax, I, as a pretender to the job of Treasurer of the ACT, am reasonably interested in a growth tax. However, I do not have pixies at the bottom of my garden. At the moment, it is within the province of the Federal Government.

Mr Hargreaves: You have them all. We want some pixies.

Mr Humphries: Leave the Democrats alone.

Mr Hird: You leave my Greens alone,. you so-called Treasurer.

MR QUINLAN: Sorry, Harold. I was not trying to assault you personally or the Hird/Moore Government. It is within the province of the Federal Government to give us States and Territories pretty much what they damn well please. I think the draft budget predicts that we will be getting Commonwealth funding of about $673m, of which $301m will be specific purpose payments. There is a bit of mystery surrounding the future of specific purpose payments. I think it was supposedly clarified by Peter Slipper, Parliamentary Secretary, who virtually said that specific purpose payments would decrease; that there would be a compensating clawback because things were going to be better or things would cost less, and I think the Prime Minister repeated that. I think he was quoted as saying, "No, we are providing less dollars, but, because costs of operating will fall, the real financial position will be the same".

At this stage, this particular year, we have a situation where, under Commonwealth horizontal fiscal equalisation, we have a positive relativity factor. We are on the positive side of the distribution between the States. That was based on the Grants Commission analysis and the various elements affecting our economy. It goes to show that there are so many different elements of the funding that we will get from the Commonwealth that it will always be possible for them to wind it on and wind it off. I think we had the forward estimates, and the equalisation payment has some factors in it that relate to growth and some factors that relate to assessments of embedded wholesale tax, all about just maintaining the same nominal number.

In passing, I might refer to the spurious accounting differential between the Commonwealth who can make us a loan and we can call it a grant, but I guess the Commonwealth - - -

Mr Humphries: That is what the Auditor-General says - we can call it a grant.

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