Page 238 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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MR SMYTH: The minister says “correct”. I think the minister needs to explain how that will be covered—how the hole that that creates in his budget will be covered. It has already been accounted for. These numbers are already in the figures here. I assume they are already in the deficits that you have predicted in the outyears, but we get to spend the money again. That is the problem with the Labor Party. They can always spend the money again, but they cannot tell you where it will come from. That is the problem here. The minister says the purpose of this tax is to give the community back value, put it back into the community, give it back to the community. But the minister is taking it from the community.
Mr Barr: No, I’m taking it from the economic rent that is accrued from the uplift.
MR SMYTH: This is good: “We’ll blame the developers; we’ll hang all this on the developers. This is the logic.
Mr Barr: So you say there is no economic rent that is achieved from that charge?
MR SMYTH: No, this is the economic rent. But if this is such a perfect tax then why do you need remissions? If this is the perfect tax that has no effect—
Mr Barr: Because there’s a transition period, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: But if it does not have an effect, why do you need a transition period? You have said it will not increase land prices and it will not increase rent—it is the perfect tax. The minister would have you believe that he alone of all treasurers in the world has found the perfect tax, the tax that has no effect. Previously when we quizzed the minister about taxes in hearings I recall him saying: “Every tax has a drag. Every tax has an effect.” Except for this one, apparently. Where does this money come from? It comes from the community, yet again—
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Barr.
MR SMYTH: to pay for things they have already paid for. We pay rates to cover municipal services. That is the usual assumption here, but not in this case. If you want—
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Barr, I have asked you several times now. You are warned for repeated interjection.
MR SMYTH: So, having found the perfect tax to offset his inability to control the spending of his colleagues and to cover their failure to deliver their obligations under the rates that are already paid for properties, whether they be private or commercial, the minister has now discovered the perfect tax. This is where the logic falls down. This charge will now be applied to the renewal of a property. It is the owner of the
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