Page 2487 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 22 August 2006
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some constraints on what he can do with the proceeds of the water extraction charge. If the money goes into consolidated revenue, it is most likely to be an excise and an illegal tax. If the Chief Minister does not spend the water extraction charge for the purposes set out in the Water Resources Act, he is putting the revenues of the territory in jeopardy.
I have put on record—I have said it over and over again—that I am not satisfied that the uses being made by this government, and perhaps even the previous government, of the water extraction charge are legal. We have seen cases about this in the past. I know the Capital Duplicators case and the case on cigarette and petrol excise, the name of which I cannot remember, have both shown that states and territories may not levy taxes of this sort. The water extraction charge comes very close, at least, to being an excise. We know that this is a matter that has occupied the minds of the ICRC, because they have, by their own admission, sought advice on a number of occasions on this.
One of the concerns that I have is that some of that advice is not publicly available, and it seems to me that, if people are not prepared to make this advice publicly available, they have something to hide. I know that previous ministers have attempted to obtain that advice, as is their right, on documents for which they had responsibility when they were ministers, and they have not succeeded in obtaining that advice. The challenge here and now—and the challenge has been made on a number of occasions—is that this minister who is responsible for the water extraction charge should provide to this Assembly all of the advice on the water extraction charge so that we can fully scrutinise the thinking that goes into the formulation of this tax. If I am wrong, I will be very pleased. But if I am right and the water extraction charge is an excise, then it is illegal, and the revenues of the ACT are at risk because of the lack of transparency of this government.
It is unprecedented that former ministers can seek to inspect papers for which they were responsible and be told that they cannot have them; that they may look at them but they cannot take them away. On other occasions, previous ministers have asked for copies of documents off files and they have been forthcoming—a bit slowly, but they have been forthcoming. But suddenly, on this issue, it is all no-speakies; it is all behind closed doors; you may look at the file but you may not take notes and you may not take it away.
That says to me that there is something to hide. If this Chief Minister is not prepared to come clean on his water abstraction regime and provide all of the advice that has been collected since about 1996 or 1998 on the water extraction charge, I think he has something to hide. I put this minister on notice now that, if we do not see these advices by the time that this debate is concluded, we will have to take other measures to obtain these advices. If we do not see these advices by the time this debate concludes, we will have to conclude that he has something to hide.
It was interesting that in the last election, of all the parties, all the groups that were consulted by the conservation council on the water extraction charge, only the Labor Party was not prepared to say that they would use the water extraction charge for water purposes only. All of the other parties were prepared to say that the water extraction charge was obtained for the purposes of maintaining our water infrastructure. That might be catchment management and all of those things. They are legitimate things that we could spend it on. But if you do not spend it on that, the risk is that it is an excise. It was only this Chief Minister who would not make that commitment.
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