Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 1997 ..

Mr Stanhope: Who said that?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Stanhope did. That is who said it. Mr Stanhope did, picking up from what an economist had said at a budget breakfast the day after the budget.

Ms Carnell: But this economist had already said he liked it.

MR HUMPHRIES: That is right. We have heard two different lines. We have heard support for the idea of having less payroll tax, but now we are eroding the payroll tax base. We have all said in this place before-Labor has joined this criticism, as I understand it-that payroll tax is a bad tax; it is a tax which taxes employment. I make no secret of the fact that I am in favour of eroding the payroll tax base. If we are lucky, we can erode it into a non-existence in due course. We can erode it all the way into oblivion. But apparently Mr Stanhope does not think that is a good idea.

When the Labor Party has worked out what it thinks about taxation, when it knows where it is coming from on taxation, I look forward to seeing their line clearly stated in this place. Perhaps Mr Quinlan will surprise us and do it right now, but I would be very surprised if he did. We can then get a clear indication of what the Labor Party thinks about tax. For the time being I am very happy to sell the ACT as a jurisdiction certainly much less heavily taxing its citizens than surrounding New South Wales.

MR QUINLAN: I ask a supplementary question. I did not get an answer to the question in the first place-everything else but. Did the per capita figures that you used to make this claim that you have yet to defend, even though you have been around the mulberry bush several times, include the $34 million the ACT receives from the Commonwealth in-guess what?-national capital influences that you have so heroically credited yourself with having made the case for before the Grants Commission? Did these calculations that you based this assertion on include the elements of the-

Ms Carnell: Why would they?

MR QUINLAN: Because they reflect the different base, particularly outside the domestic taxation base. They reflect the inability to collect taxes from business in the ACT that would otherwise distort a per capita calculation, Mrs Carnell. It is not too hard for you, is it? It would be too hard for him. Did you include in your calculations the Commonwealth Grants Commission's national capital influences payments to make sure that you gave a truthful reflection to the people of the ACT when you were talking about the level of taxation that is imposed upon them?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I know Mr Quinlan likes to tout himself as the accountancy mega-brain of the Assembly, the person who is so far superior to anybody else on these issues that they can not possibly cope with the stratospheric conditions in which his mind might operate. That is very much Mr Quinlan's personal label on himself in this place. Perhaps I am being a bit dimwitted. Perhaps people can explain why I am making this error in my logic. My press release was about taxation levels, how much people were taxed in the ACT, how much government was forcing people to pay from people to government. Payments made by the Commonwealth to the ACT are payments from government to government, not government to people or vice versa. Why would such payments be taken into account in such a figure in any case?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .