Page 1577 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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Unfortunately for the people of the ACT and for the people in every other state and territory in Australia, the agreement has not been fully honoured. Certainly, some of those nuisance taxes have been abolished and a timetable has been implemented to abolish most of the balance of the taxes that were identified in the agreement.
There are, however, a couple of significant concerns with this timetable. Firstly, the states and territories had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the negotiating table to start the negotiations on removing the balance of the taxes that were specified in the agreement. What does this tell us? It tells us that all the Labor premiers and chief ministers were more than happy to enjoy the increased revenue being generated by the GST while they continued to double dip by retaining those taxes that should have been abolished.
Secondly, if that was not bad enough, while the states and territories did finally agree to a timetable, they managed to stretch this timetable out as far as they could. This simply means that up until 2012, and 2013 in some instances, the states and territories will continue to double dip into our pockets to fund their profligacy while they continue to rake in additional funds flowing from the GST. Of course, some of those inefficient taxes remain as a millstone around our economic necks.
Indeed, it is quite hypocritical of Labor premiers and chief ministers to do this in relation to this important issue. In the ACT our Chief Minister, along with his colleagues interstate, has not implemented the intergovernmental agreement to its full extent. In doing so, he has denied to ACT businesses and families the intended benefit of full tax reform. You have to ask yourself: is the ACT the most business-friendly jurisdiction in Australia, as our Chief Minister claims? Clearly it is it not.
There is great concern in the business community in relation to the business aspects of this budget. Indeed, it would seem that there have been some further cuts in relation to that aspect. Whilst there are a couple of welcome initiatives—and I will be the first to congratulate the Chief Minister on his trips to India and China to get extra business; that is something that should be applauded and encouraged—there is very little else there in this budget for business. All the imposts on business, like all the imposts on families and battlers in the community with the increased taxes and charges last year, remain.
I call on the Chief Minister to honour the spirit of the tax reforms and actually set out a proper agenda to get rid of these nuisance taxes that were set out in the agreement and actually to remove from our economy those taxes which do annoy and are there to the detriment of business. They create very high compliance costs and actually suppress economic activity. By suppressing economic activity you are not having a city that is conducive to investment. If you are business friendly, if you do encourage investment, if you give incentives to encourage business investment or get rid of imposts that restrict it, you will have a continuing growing economy.
What is more, you will have a growing economy and a more efficient and broader economy than simply relying on GST and windfall gains from land sales. When the inevitable downturn comes, you will be in a much better position to weather the storm. It is called building for the future. That is certainly something that we did as the
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