Page 2239 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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ACT taxation system and undertake reform in a staged way to allow for appropriate transition time. I thought that was what the minister had announced. The minister has already announced that we will stage it out over 20 years. So we have got a motion from the government calling on the government to do what the government has already announced that the government is going to do. That is a worthwhile motion always!
I might have expected, I would have hoped for, something a little more positive—perhaps something along the lines of the ACT’s tax system being designed to underpin competitive businesses and sound economic development—but, as always, I was sadly disappointed by those opposite. I think what it represents is a government that is bereft of thinking and a Treasurer who can only think of himself and not give credit to others.
Turning to the report itself, if we in the community were looking for something that was remarkable, we are, again, disappointed. This report is very much the creature of the former Treasurer, the person who distinguished himself as Treasurer for having such an appalling record of poorly thought out taxation proposals. There were so many of them that most of them were defeated by this place.
Let us run through a few of those. Remember the rating policy? I think I see the rating policy revisited here. The government proposed a complete change to the way in which rates were determined in the ACT and it was defeated in the Assembly. Remember the corporate reconstruction concessions? Remember the transfer of business acquisitions, a policy that imposed a duty on the acquisition of businesses at the same rate as conveyance duty?
Remember the bushfire tax? The government proposed to impose a fixed levy on all rateable properties for two years, raising over $10 million. It was a knee-jerk reaction that was abandoned as unnecessary. Remember the loans security duty that they proposed? This policy would have imposed a duty on secured loans with a value of more than $1 million, raising about $500,000 per annum. This proposal was abandoned after the government realised, belatedly, that the states were abolishing this duty.
What about pay parking in Barton? The proposal had to be abandoned when it was established that the ACT government could not introduce this taxing measure. What about the parking space tax? This measure was proposed in the 2003-04 budget to apply in the four city centres in Canberra, raising $2.5 million. Again, this policy was very poorly developed and the government failed to undertake proper consultation. What was the outcome? The government was again forced to abandon the proposal.
There was the homebuyer concession scheme. After considerable pressure from the opposition and others the government finally agreed to make the parameters of this policy more appropriate. There was the motor vehicle tax in 2006. The Stanhope government sought to impose stamp duty on motor vehicles based on the list price of a vehicle. The proposal was withdrawn. We have got the utility land use permit, ultimately called the infrastructure tax. There was a fire services tax. We have got the victim services tax, we have got outdoor fees and, of course, we have got the great big tax that they imposed in last year’s budget—the land valuation charge.
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