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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1044 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

that we will be administering a scheme which has been provided for and funded by the Commonwealth Government and, much as I would like to top up that scheme, I do not believe it is incumbent on us to do that.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Corbell has a supplementary question.

MR CORBELL: The point I am making, Minister, is that there will be people who will be paying GST in the period from which the GST is implemented for part or all of their building contract. Can you explain why the government-administered scheme, the scheme you are administering, cannot be applied on a pro rata basis to first home owners who sign those building contracts, because they will be still having to pay GST? I do not believe that it is going to be a significant impost, but a number of people out there will be caught in this situation, many under circumstances which are beyond their control. They may have anticipated completing the work prior to the GST taking effect but, for a number of reasons, they will be caught in the situation where their work will be continuing beyond 1 July. Why not simply administer it on a pro rata basis?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the answer to that question is the answer I have already given. If we were to apply it on a pro rata basis, we would have to provide the funds to do that.

Mr Corbell: They do not care.

MR HUMPHRIES: I do care about it, Mr Corbell. With great respect, it is hardly fair to say to me, "You are not enlarging a Commonwealth scheme beyond what every other State and Territory, including a number of Labor States, have administered and therefore you are mean and unaware of the suffering of people who are building homes". I am sorry, but that is not the way it works. We have been given a sum of money by the Commonwealth to administer a scheme. We propose to administer that scheme on the basis - - -

Mr Stanhope: Have you been out pleading?

MR SPEAKER: Be quiet! Mr Corbell asked the question, Mr Stanhope.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, we have been attacked in this place on the basis that people opposite do not believe that we can deliver on the promise that there will be no adverse impact suffered by the ACT fiscus, the ACT budget, as a result of the administration of the GST. We will be no worse off as a result of the GST. The people opposite have attacked us several times about that and tried to find out whether we will be worse off. But if we picked up Mr Corbell's suggestion, we certainly would be worse off because we would be administering a scheme that the Commonwealth has not asked us to administer and would not be paying for, so we would have to pick up that cost.

The other point I want to make is that Mr Corbell, as a member of the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services, has just considered the draft budget for the ACT. Presumably he has been aware of this issue for a little while. Why has he not

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