Page 2240 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
As you can see, Madam Assistant Speaker, it is a particularly consistent litany of failure of tax reform from Labor governments over the last 11 or so years. I suspect the current proposals will go much the same way. I think this history does not, as a jurisdiction, stand us in good stead but, as I said a moment ago, we will consider this report in good faith.
It is important to set the scene in which this report has been made. Ms Porter raised the Henry review. The Quinlan tax review makes a number of mentions of the Henry review, which reviewed taxation at a national level and reported in May 2010. Considered by most as an excellent report, it outlined the complexities of the current system, comprehensive discussion of taxation measures and carefully argued recommendations. But what happened to that report, Madam Assistant Speaker? The Gillard government, with Treasurer Swan in the vanguard, gave it lip-service and then discounted virtually all of the report. At least Mr Henry got invited to that release of the government’s response to his report, unlike Mr Quinlan, who did not. If memory serves me right, Mr Henry left before the conference was over.
Henry proposed something like 138 recommendations. Virtually all were rejected. The Labor government sort of accepted the principle of taxing resources. Henry recommended a uniform resource rent tax. The government proposed a hybrid and then spent a lot of time fighting to get a proposal, any proposal, accepted. As we look at the Henry tax review now, it is a sad and sorry tale of a government initiating a report and failing to follow through. Will the ACT’s experience be similar to the Henry review? Let me read some words from the Swan press release of that day:
Today I received the report of the Australia’s Future Tax System review team.
The report will provide the foundations for a long-term plan for reform …
Does that sound a bit familiar, Madam Assistant Speaker? Well, yes, it should, because what did our Treasurer say? He said:
Overall, the Panel’s work provides a very useful starting point for the Government to consider improvements in the fairness and efficiency of the current system …
The similarities are a bit eerie, really, aren’t they? I have some concerns about the Treasurer’s apparent determination to act alone if there is no national agreement on pursuing tax reform. We already have a terrible mish-mash of competing taxes within jurisdictions. The Henry report is the latest of many reports that demonstrate that, of the revenue raised by taxes in Australia, 10 taxes raise about 90 per cent of the total tax revenue. The other 10 per cent of revenue is raised by a collection of more than 100 taxes and variations of these taxes. That situation is not sustainable. That situation is not competitive. That situation must be cleaned up. It will not be cleaned up by a jurisdiction acting on its own.
There is one issue that really concerns me about the initial response of the Treasurer, as reported in the Canberra Times on Monday, in his criticism of how non-Liberal government states have not been acting on tax reform. It is a bit rich. Perhaps he
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video